


city of angels and saints

by hujwernoo



Series: where only the lost can find [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: ALL the warnings my dudes, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Derogatory Language, Domestic Violence, Drug Use, Drugged Sex, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Forced Prostitution, Gen, Hate Crimes, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Possession, Prostitution, Self-Harm, Sexual Assault, Suicide Attempt, Touch-Starved, so many fucking warnings guys jfc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:48:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 52,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22882006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hujwernoo/pseuds/hujwernoo
Summary: It's hard, being dead. Even harder when you have to watch your brother self-destruct for no reason at all.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves
Series: where only the lost can find [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1628206
Comments: 1014
Kudos: 1111
Collections: The Best of Klaus





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so here is the second fic in the series! I will be posting new chapters on a M/W/F schedule, and so far I have 12 chapters written and probably won't have more than five more.
> 
> WARNINGS: this fic is going to get pretty dark. I do not write explicit but there will be a lot of bad things happening to Klaus. Please be aware, and if its too much for you I _think_ you can probably read the next story without reading this one.

Ben squints up at the sky. “Looks like rain,” he comments idly.

“Mmm,” Klaus says.

“Probably a lot of it,” Ben says, keeping his eyes on the sky.

“Mmmmm,” Klaus says.

“Might almost compare to the storm at my funeral,” Ben judges. “Remember that? We had to have it inside because we literally couldn’t see each other outside. And Dad didn’t want to get wet, of course. God forbid my death take precedence over the old bastard’s comfort.”

_“Yeah,”_ Klaus says, shooting Ben an annoyed glance. Ben suppresses a smile. Klaus should know by now that acknowledgement just spurs him on.

“You know, I never mentioned what I saw later that night,” Ben says. “I was wandering around after the funeral, checking in on everybody, and then I went to Allison’s room and _Luther_ was there, and compared to what you’re doing now -”

Klaus hisses and turns to fully glare at Ben. “Shut _up!_ ”

“Excuse me?” says the woman.

Ben honestly can’t remember her name - something that starts with A or E or maybe M. She draws back from Klaus, looking confused and offended.

“No no no, not you,” Klaus says, holding out his hands. His shirt is on the ground, his pants half-unbuttoned. The woman isn’t much more decent than him. “Wasn’t talking to you, of course not.”

“What, so you were thinking of someone _else?_ ” The woman scowls. She’s reasonably attractive, Ben guesses, by the standards of people Klaus usually sleeps with. The scowl, however, erases most of her good features. “Who?”

“Ugh, nothing, just my stupid brother,” Klaus says, glaring at Ben.

“You were thinking of your _brother_ when I was about to give you a handy?” The woman recoils in disgust. “Ew, ew, _ew._ I’m outta here.”

“Wait, shit, no!” Klaus says, but the woman snatches up her clothes and flees the alley.

Klaus sags against the bricks for a moment, before pivoting on one foot and glaring murder at Ben. Ben, being already dead, is unaffected.

“Hate,” Klaus hisses. “Hate you. So much.”

“I have to get my entertainment somehow,” Ben says.

“Then go watch a movie!” Klaus throws up his hands. “Spy on our siblings! Visit the ocean! Or the moon! Preferably the moon, being on the same planet as you sounds _very_ unappealing right now.”

“Why do any of that when I can make your hookups think you’re into incest?” Ben says reasonably.

Klaus glares harder, then slumps. “Did you have to bring up _actual_ incest, though?” he asks plaintively.

“Who said anything about that?” Ben says innocently. “I was just going to say Luther and Allison were holding each other, it was _way_ less racy compared to what you were doing.”

“....You know,” Klaus says, “When everyone was rhapsodizing about what a good and nice person you were after your death, keeping a straight face was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“You _didn’t_ keep a straight face, that’s why everyone is mad at you,” Ben reminds him. Or just tells him. He’s not entirely sure how much Klaus actually remembers about the days following Ben’s death.

“Psh, whatever,” Klaus waves the subject away. He does that a lot, Ben has found. Usually when one of his flaws gets thrown into relief.

Pushing back the small flare of annoyance, Ben looks back up at the sky. “You should get to shelter, though. It really does look like rain.”

“Does not,” Klaus says, probably just to be contrary.

“It does,” Ben says flatly. He’s learned how to handle Klaus in the six years since he’s died - at least, as much as Klaus _can_ be handled. Right now, Klaus is on the tail end of a high, coming down but not too hard. He has more pills in his pocket (the only time he _doesn’t_ have pills is when he has needles or powders, instead), plenty of them, so he’s not frantically planning out ways to get more. He’s annoyed with Ben thanks to scaring off the hookup, which is a drawback, but otherwise he’s capable of focusing enough that he’ll probably listen. “And you need to find shelter.”

“Well, I _did,_ before you scared her off,” Klaus says.

“Klaus, she was as homeless as you,” Ben rolls his eyes. “Someone else.”

“Ben,” Klaus mimics his tone, “if I start growing standards, I’m going to die of pneumonia.”

Slowly, Ben counts to ten.

It doesn’t help very much. He tilts back his head and closes his eyes.

The thing is, Klaus is right. He really can’t afford to have standards, not when winter is bearing down and a cold snap could hit any day. Not when the dumpster where he keeps his (very few) changes of clothes soaks up heat like a sponge, and all the homeless shelters turn him away when they see just how dilated his pupils are. Not when he throws every last dime he has into buying drugs, drugs, and more drugs.

It’s honestly mind-boggling, just how many drugs Klaus buys. He’s hooked on just about every single kind there is, it seems like, and he _never_ turns down a high. Sometimes, Ben wonders if Klaus is more addicted to _being a junkie_ than anything else, because he doesn’t seem to have a favorite drug, just buys whatever is nearest (and whoever said drugs dull your mental acuity has clearly never seen Klaus working out which dealer is selling closest to him based on time of day, day of the week, how much they usually sell and how many other customers are in the neighborhood). After six years of constant proximity, Ben can say with complete confidence that Klaus has _never_ been sober in all that time. He always gets more drugs.

And, of course, there’s how he pays for them.

Ben ignores the sharp jab of the Horror inside his stomach through ease of long practice. “Just go to the club already.”

“You’re sending very mixed signals here, Benny,” Klaus says, stretching. “First you scare away my hookup for the night, then you tell me to go a-hunting? My brain is all mushy, you have to keep it simple. And why can’t I just -”

“It would take too long to find a customer willing to let you spend the night,” Ben interrupts.

“But I’d get _paid,_ and weren’t you the one complaining about how I should eat or whatever -”

“Just go to the damn club, Klaus,” Ben says.

“Ugh, fine, if it stops your whining,” Klaus sticks out his tongue, and saunters off.

Ben is left alone in the alley. He stares blankly at the wall.

It’s not - it’s not so much that Klaus sells himself, really. Ben, sadly, got used to that in the first year after his death. It’s more that Klaus puts drugs above _everything._ Food, shelter, warmth, health. Himself. If it came down to a choice between his own foot and a bag of pills, Ben knows exactly what choice Klaus would make (it would be different if the choice was between pills and a hand, but only because you need two of them to use a needle).

Ben runs his hands through his hair and grips onto it. He closes his eyes and takes a breath.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Then he follows after Klaus.

**********

The club is seedy enough that Ben isn’t entirely sure that the puddles on the floor are alcohol. He eyes his surroundings, looking out for anyone suspicious, before realizing that counts as everyone. So he resolves to look out for anyone screaming and charging at Klaus with a knife.

Which is needed, because Klaus certainly isn’t paying attention. He took a few more pills (judging from the wideness of his smile, at least three) and is dancing out on the floor. If it can be called dancing, anyways.

Klaus has always been good-looking. Ben used to be annoyed about that, just a little - he and Allison were always the ones who got photographed and gushed over, always asked questions about their styles and looks and so on. While Luther and Five always fought over who talked to the press about the mission, and Ben and Diego hung off in the back (at least, until Diego conquered his stutter), Allison and Klaus were the engaging ones, the ones that drew everyone’s eyes with sheer charisma and vibrancy.

Out on the streets, however, those traits are a drawback. Klaus can’t help but attract attention wherever he goes, and even beneath years of drugs and grunge he’s still quite good-looking. Beautiful, even.

It is not a good idea to be beautiful in the places Klaus regularly hangs around.

Sure enough, there’s more than a few people looking at Ben’s brother with a familiar glint in their eyes. Klaus spins around in a circle on the floor, laughing to himself. He’s flushed and sweaty, and the light reflects off his hair like a halo.

A man sidles up to Klaus, bumps against him as they sway to the music. “Hey there,” the man says, grinning.

“Hey!” Klaus says, grinning back. He flashes his palm at the man, the one that says ‘hello’. He got the tattoos just over two years ago, when he was so high he could barely explain to the artist what he wanted. When he came back to himself, he was extremely distraught to have wasted so much potential drug money, even if he liked the tats.

Ben wasn’t all that happy about it either. Klaus hadn’t eaten for two days before then, and then he decided to spend all his money on _tattoos._

“You looking for a good time?” the man says, moving closer to Klaus.

“If you’re offering,” Klaus says.

The man’s eyes roam hungrily over Klaus’ body, and Ben has to look away.

“Sure am,” the man says. He grabs onto Klaus’ wrist and pulls him towards the club’s exit. “What do you say we get out of here?”

“Lead the way!” Klaus says brightly, ignoring how the man is already doing that. Or maybe just not noticing. It’s always a tossup, how cognizant Klaus is of his surroundings when he’s this high.

Ben sighs to himself. Of course Klaus didn’t check that they’re actually going back to the guy’s place for the night. It might be that the guy just wants a quickie in the alleyway behind the club, in which case they’ll have lost valuable time. Ben eyes the horizon, where the sun is just beginning to set.

Sure enough, the guy leads Klaus towards the alley instead of the parking lot. Klaus, giggling quietly to himself, doesn’t notice until they come to a stop.

He looks around, wide-eyed like a child who isn’t sure what’s going on. He jerks in surprise when the man pushes him against the wall and starts kissing him.

“Mrrg?” Klaus says.

“He’s not taking you back home, dumbass,” Ben says. He eyes the man, who’s reedy and thin even if he’s taller than Klaus, and decides that there’s a good chance Klaus can hold his own if things get violent. “Tell him no. You have to find someone else.”

Klaus hesitates for a couple seconds, before pushing against the man’s chest.

“What?” The guys says once he gets the message and breaks away. He gives a smirk that’s probably supposed to be seductive, or something. “You got suggestions?”

“Nah,” Klaus says, sighing. “Sorry, I just - remembered something. Gotta go.”

“What?” the guy says, blinking.

Klaus slips out from between the wall and the guy, who’s too surprised to react immediately. Klaus lopes to the entrance of the alleyway, and Ben finds himself relaxing.

That is, until the guy reaches out and grabs Klaus’ arm.

“What, hey, wait a second,” the guy says, as Klaus freezes. “What do you mean, you gotta go? You’re leaving?”

Ben closes his eyes. “Shit,” he says, more tiredly than anything else. He knows the tone in the guy’s voice. It’s offended pride, the kind that comes from feeling entitled to something only for that something to try and walk away.

“I - yeah, you know,” Klaus says, and even though he’s trying to play it cool Ben can tell he’s heard the tone as well. “Sorry, it’s nothing to do with you, it’s just that I have this _blazingly_ important appointment across the city, totally slipped my mind until now, and -”

“Oh, come on,” the guy says, sounding solidly annoyed now. “You were all over me a few minutes ago, and now I’m not good enough for you? Is that it?”

Klaus blinks and sways on his feet, and Ben can tell it’s a struggle for him to stay focused on the conversation. With a sinking heart, Ben realizes that when he judged Klaus capable of matching the guy in a fight, he forgot to account for the fact that Klaus is _soaring_ right now.

“I - no?” Klaus says, except his voice sounds uncertain. He’s losing track of what’s going on.

Unfortunately, the guy takes that uncertainty to indicate a lie.

It’s honestly not much of a surprise when Klaus gets pushed up against the wall of the alley. Ben digs his nails into his palms so deeply he’s pretty sure they’d start bleeding if he were still alive.

“That’s funny,” the guy says, something dark in his tone. “That’s real - fucking - funny. You think you’re too good for me? _You?_ Some ten-dollar whore who came into that club practically giving himself up on a platter?”

“Huh?” Klaus says, frowning, eyes dilated so much there’s almost no iris showing. “No, ’m fifteen dollars.”

The guy pauses. “....Seriously?”

Ben takes a very, very deep breath, and quietly curses to himself.

“No, wait, seriously?” the guys says. “You’re seriously a whore. And - you tried to turn me down. What the _fuck._ ”

Klaus lets out a yelp as the guy _shoves_ him against the wall. “Ow - hey, stop -”

Ben digs his nails deeper into his palms, and closes his eyes.

He debates with himself about walking away.

It’s not like he can do anything. If Klaus even remembers he’s here, he wouldn’t want Ben to see what’s probably going to happen next. _Ben_ doesn’t want to see what’s probably going to happen next. There’s nothing he can do to the guy, however much he wants to let the Horror out for just a few seconds.

That’s impossible, though. Ben can’t help Klaus, can never help Klaus. Not even on the few rare occasions when Klaus would accept it. Not even those times when Klaus loses his grip on reality and asks - _begs,_ really - for Ben to help him. Not when Klaus takes on customers who make him do utterly _disgusting_ things, not when Klaus overdoses in the backs of seedy bars and clubs, and not now, when some random stranger is going to take what he wants regardless of what Klaus is saying, like he isn’t even a person, just something conveniently _there._

Sure enough, the guy grunts as Klaus keeps pleading (which is definitely the drugs’ influence, he hardly ever pleads even during encounters worse than this). “Shut up,” the guy snaps. “Stay _still,_ fucking whore, you _asked_ for it, I swear to god -”

“No, no,” Klaus babbles. “No, wait, I don’t - please -”

_“Hey!”_

Ben’s eyes fly open. Klaus stops struggling, and the guy pauses.

As one, they look over to the mouth of the alleyway, where the most beautiful sight Ben has ever seen is standing.

“What,” Diego says lowly, “the _fuck_ is going on here?”


	2. Chapter 2

“Fuck off,” the guy says.

It’s the wrong answer. Diego’s face darkens into an expression Ben knows very well, because he feels his own face morph into it every day.

“Let go of him,” Diego says, voice deadly quiet.

“Fuck _off,_ we were just having a little fun,” the guy says. Ben marvels at his stupidity. Sure, Ben and maybe Klaus can tell Diego is just barely refraining from murder, but the guy seems to entirely miss the aura of death in the air.

“I’m not saying it again,” Diego says, shifting to grab the handle of one of his knives.

“Oh come on,” the guy says, finally shifting back a step, eyeing the knife. “It’s not a big deal, I was gonna pay him after -”

“No you weren’t,” Ben mutters. In fact, it might have made it worse if he did.

“Nuh- _uh,_ ” Klaus manages, still held up mostly by the guy’s arm. He frowns.

The guy shoots a glare at Klaus and opens his mouth, but before he can say a word a knife _whizzes_ by and plants itself right in the guy’s arm.

They all stare at it for one long second.

Then the guy _shrieks_ and falls to the ground, and Diego darts forward to stop Klaus from collapsing as well. Ben shoots a darkly satisfied look at the guy, clutching at his arm and screaming, white-faced.

“Come on,” Diego says, smoothly leaning down and _yanking_ his knife out of the guy’s arm. Ben tilts his head, and concludes that if the guy gets medical treatment right away, he probably won’t bleed out.

Pity, that.

“Jesus christ, Klaus,” Diego mutters, and Ben dismisses the guy as he refocuses on his brothers. Diego is trying to walk Klaus to the mouth of the alley, but Klaus’ feet aren’t cooperating. He moves them, vaguely, but they get tangled in Diego’s just as often as they manage to propel him forward.

“Di!” Klaus says, grinning back at Diego. “Hiii~”

“Move it,” Diego says, clearly drawing upon his fairly meager stores of patience. Ben knows the feeling, because even though he could easily be described as the most patient of all his siblings, even he gets fed up with Klaus on an almost daily basis.

“Mmmmm,” Klaus says vaguely. He looks around as they exit the alleyway. There are a couple people hanging around the street who _should_ be close enough to hear the guy’s screaming, but none of them make a move towards the sound.

Good old home.

“Diego?” Klaus says, sounding surprised. Ben looks at him. He’s studying Diego’s face like he’s never seen it before. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving your ass,” Diego says, sounding aggrieved. He stops for a moment and wipes the bloody knife on the side of his ridiculous leather getup.

Klaus follows the movement, and it takes a couple seconds for his eyes to focus on the knife properly.

Then suddenly -

\- Klaus _shrieks_ in terror and rips himself away from Diego, crashing to the ground and scrambling away, eyes blown wide and mouth agape with horror.

Ben jerks back, staring at Klaus. Diego does the same, all his annoyance wiped clean by sheer surprise.

“No, no, no,” Klaus says, eyes fixed on the still-bloody knife. His breathing comes in sharp, jagged gasps. “No, no, Diego, no, I didn’t, no, I _didn’t,_ I’m _high,_ I am, I’m safe, I didn’t, no, Diego, please -”

“What -” Diego says, too bewildered to react at first.

But Ben has seen Klaus go through some _nasty_ hallucinations over the years, so he just kneels down next to Klaus, blocking his view of Diego.

“Klaus,” Ben says firmly. “Klaus, snap out of it. Nothing is wrong, you’re not going to be hurt. Look at me, Klaus.”

Klaus’ eyes lock on Ben’s, still as dilated as ever. Klaus barely looks cognizant, and Ben can only hope that his own appearance doesn’t make whatever Klaus is seeing even more fucked-up.

“It’s okay, Klaus,” Ben says patiently.

Klaus whines, a high, panicked sound. “No,” he says, half-garbled. “No - I - Diego, he’s - the knife, I didn’t - please, I’m sorry, I didn’t - Diego -”

“Hey,” Diego says, crouching down next to Klaus all of a sudden. Klaus jerks, eyes darting to him, and Ben curses silently to himself. He’s pretty sure he has more experience than Diego at talking Klaus down from a panic attack, and it’s a coin flip whether Diego’s presence will help, considering he seems to be the focus of this little freakout. “Hey, Klaus, what’s wrong?”

Ben almost groans out loud.

Klaus makes another high-pitched sound. “I didn’t mean to,” he babbles, “I didn’t, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Diego, I didn’t mean to, I’m _sorry,_ I tried - I tried, I - I’m not safe, oh god, I need - I need - I’m _sorry -_ ”

“What - Klaus, you _are_ safe, I promise,” Diego reaches out. “That scumbag’s gone, you’re safe now.”

But Klaus flinches back, his eyes still fixed on -

\- the knife.

It clicks in both Ben and Diego’s minds at the same time, and they blink in unison.

“What,” Ben says.

“What,” Diego says, looking between Klaus and the knife. “What - Klaus you think _I’d_ hurt you? What the fuck?”

“I’m sorry,” Klaus just says, staring at the knife. There’s a hollowness to his eyes now, the last spark of light leaving them. His voice slides into a dull monotone, like he knows it won’t help. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I tried not to. I’m sorry.”

“What the _fuck,_ ” Ben says, just a beat before Diego. Ben shakes his head. “Klaus. _Klaus._ Just - shut up for a minute. Diego isn’t going to hurt you, jesus christ.”

“Klaus, I’m n-n - fuck,” Diego says, clenching his jaw. He glares at Klaus, who stares blankly back. Diego shoves the knife back into his harness, and reaches out to grab ahold of Klaus’ arm.

_That_ gets a reaction. Klaus spasms in shock, sucking in a sharp breath. He stares at Diego, whipping his head between his face and the hand on his arm.

“Oh, yeah, just grab him,” Ben mutters to himself. “That’s going to help.”

Klaus doesn’t try to pull away, but then he never does. He unlearned that impulse before Ben even died, and the only reason Ben knows he ever had it at all is an offhand comment about one of his early hookups not liking how much he struggled.

“I - I - what?” Klaus stammers, and a glint of awareness enters his eyes. He blinks at Diego, then at Ben.

“You’re okay,” Ben repeats, because Diego seems to have become mute, jaw locked and drilling holes in Klaus’ forehead with his eyes. He also seems to have stopped breathing, but that’s less of a concern for him than most people. “Klaus, you’re outside that sleazy club over on Williams. You know, the one without strawberries in their martinis? I’m here, Diego’s here, and _no one is getting stabbed._ ” Ben pauses, and notes that the sound from the alleyway is nearly inaudible now. “Well, none of us, anyways.”

Klaus blinks a few times, and looks at Diego’s hand around his arm.

“Oh,” he says, faintly.

Diego finally takes a breath. Not that he needs to, but it seems to steady him.

“What,” he says, and Ben can tell it’s a struggle to prevent the words from catching in his throat, “the _hell,_ Klaus.”

Klaus flinches back, but Ben notes he’s careful to not disrupt Diego’s grasp. Ben has to set his jaw at the reminder of how Klaus never tries to fight back against anyone who tries to manhandle him. Not unless Ben urges him to, anyways.

But considering how _that_ usually ends….

“Sorry,” Klaus mumbles, dropping his eyes to the ground.

“That - you - fuck,” Diego says, running his other hand over his face. He takes a deep breath.

“I think he’s going to lecture you,” Ben decides, looking at their brother. “Or talk about rehab again, or say something that says how much he cares about you after you run it through translation for a bit. Or hey, maybe all three, it’s been a while since he’s dropped by.”

Hey, _someone_ has to lift the mood a little. Usually that someone is Klaus, but he’s probably not going to feel like joking around for the next, oh, fifteen minutes or so. Ben has to pick up the slack in the meantime.

Klaus’ eyes flick to Ben, and there’s the slightest lightening of his shoulders. No hint of a smile just yet, but Ben relaxes. He’ll be fine - or, well, Klaus’ definition of fine.

Diego doesn’t see it, though. “Okay,” he says, sounding like he’s decided something. Ben’s eyebrows raise as he hauls Klaus to his feet. Klaus stumbles, and Diego pulls him along the sidewalk.

“Huh?” Klaus says, and Ben sighs. Klaus just lost the thread of what’s going on. “What - Diego? Why are you here?”

“I’m taking you to rehab,” Diego says, making a beeline to his car.

Klaus stops. “What.”

Diego easily pulls him forward again. “Just what I said. You’re going to rehab. Chop chop.”

“You know, it’d suit you better if you said ‘stab stab,’” Klaus advises, then blinks. “And wait, rehab? Come on, man, I’m fine.”

This time _Diego_ is the one who stops, and gives him a disbelieving glance. Ben does as well.

“What?” Klaus says defensively, wrinkling his nose and scowling at them. “I am!”

Diego shakes his head. “Nope. Rehab. Come on.”

Klaus protests some more, but he’s still higher than a space station and Diego hasn’t let himself waste away like _some_ people. He easily gets corralled into the car, Ben trailing behind like always.

Then they head off to the rehab center.

**********

Here’s the thing:

Klaus _hates_ rehab.

It would logically follow that he’d hate it, since the entire place is dedicated to tearing him away from his one true love, but Klaus takes it a step further. Ben has seen Klaus smile and joke around with people who have literally raped him, watched him give away his only blanket to some other high-as-hell addict who just punched him in the face, and even try, clumsily, to talk a teen out of slipping into the harder stuff. While said teen and his friends were playing an enthralling game of ‘What Will The Junkie Do For Twenty Dollars.’

But Klaus _hates_ rehab, and everything and everyone associated with it.

He’ll do everything in his power to avoid going _near_ the place. He always keeps at least two blocks away from it, even if it means going out of his way, as if its mere presence will reach out and grab at him like the Horror. He smuggles drugs into the place whenever he can, _however_ he can, and that’s only if he can’t flat-out escape. And he has done some truly desperate things to escape. If he gets even an inkling of sobriety, he’ll shout and scream and curse and rage and get on absolutely everybody’s last nerve, to the point where the center actually had to call the police one time (Klaus, of course, took advantage of the opportunity to run off).

Their siblings have managed to throw Klaus in rehab a total of five times so far. The last two times, Ben had to talk him out of literally burning down the place.

Ben is _not_ looking forward to the sixth time.

Sure enough, there are a total of five escape attempts on the drive over, most of which consist of Klaus trying to throw himself out of a moving vehicle. The only reason it stops there is because Klaus forgets where they’re going a third of the way there and Diego lies that they’re getting food when he asks.

It’s kind of sad how excited Klaus is about that.

Because when they pull up to the building that definitely isn’t a diner, Klaus’ face _freezes._ He stares at the center with wide eyes, before whipping his head around to look at Diego in sheer betrayal.

“Don’t look at me like that, you need to get clean,” Diego says, as if he actually believes Klaus will ever get clean.

_“No,”_ Klaus bites out, and there’s that familiar angry glint in his eyes that comes out whenever anyone tells him he should stop taking drugs. It’s a personal offense, Ben has learned, to suggest he _has_ to get sober. Klaus never did take orders well, but especially not that one. “No, _you think_ I need to get clean, but I _don’t._ I _can’t_ get clean, Diego, no fucking way, so why don’t you just _fuck off_ and let me live my life.”

“What life,” Ben says from the backseat. He leans back and closes his eyes, because he knows how this confrontation ends. “You’re almost as dead as me.”

Klaus hisses at him.

Diego ignores the byplay and Klaus’ ranting, merely getting out of the car. Klaus takes the opportunity to scramble out the passenger side and make a break for it, but he’s been neglecting his body for six years (actually much longer than that, if they’re being honest with each other) and Diego always was a health nut.

Ben idly watches as Klaus is dragged, literally kicking and screaming, into the rehab center.

He runs his hands through his hair, and takes a deep breath. Then several more.

This is probably for the best, he tells himself. There’s pretty much zero chance of Klaus actually getting clean, but at least he’ll have a roof over his head for tonight. Maybe even tomorrow night, if Ben can convince him to stay that long. The odds on that aren’t good, but it’s at least _possible._

Although of course that will have effects on his - business. If he’s absent for too long, his customers will get annoyed and look elsewhere. And as much as Ben hateshates _hates_ how Klaus sells himself, it’s the only thing that keeps him alive. It’s not like he has any _other_ marketable skills, and any employers offering even the most menial work would take one look and immediately realize their registers would be emptied on day one.

So sex work pays the bills - or the dealers, in this case. And if there’s some left over, it can be spent on food and clothes and maybe even makeup, if it’s a _really_ good night. Klaus loves it when he can buy (or steal, more usually) makeup. Ben can’t even bring himself to protest.

After all, it’s the only time when Klaus approaches something close to happy.

That’s not going to be happening anytime soon, though. Ben rubs his face, and looks at the rehab center. He takes another deep breath he hasn’t needed for the past six years, and phases through the car to head inside.

Finding Klaus doesn’t take very long. He’s sitting in a small room that manages to out-bland the last dozen motel rooms they’ve frequented over the past few months. Klaus’ eyes briefly flick over to Ben as he comes in, but then he goes back to determinedly staring at the wall.

“Silent treatment,” Ben says, unimpressed. “Are you _actually_ four?”

Usually, such an opportunity for a pun on his name wouldn’t be missed for the world, but Klaus just hunches his shoulders and doesn’t respond.

Ben sighs. Diego is at the desk, giving the last of Klaus’ information, and judging from the tenseness in his shoulders as Ben passed he probably won’t come to say goodbye before he leaves. It’s not anything new. They all know Klaus will be out of here as soon as humanly possible, and his and Diego’s next meeting won’t be that much different from tonight’s.

Ben settles down on the tiny desk in the corner, drawing his knees up to his chest. He tilts his head back to rest against the wall, and closes his eyes.

“Here’s to sobriety,” he mutters.

There’s a faint scoff from Klaus, but nothing else.

And so the countdown begins.


	3. Chapter 3

Ben can always tell when Klaus is approaching sobriety. It’s never subtle. Klaus gets twitchy and fidgety, muscles tenser and tenser with each passing minute. He gets quieter, less willing to joke around, which is a flat-out miracle and cannot otherwise be repeated (more’s the pity). He ignores other people completely, in fact, whether they be the other residents or employees or Ben himself.

Ben clenches his jaw, and tries to pretend that doesn’t bother him. He fails after a few minutes, which is only to be expected.

Because, to put it bluntly: Klaus is the _only_ person Ben can interact with. At all. He’s the only person who can hear Ben’s commentary, can see his rolled eyes or unimpressed expressions, who is _aware that he exists._

Being _ignored_ is -

Well.

It _kind of_ ticks him off.

It makes him feel invisible - which he is, of course, but he means in the metaphorical sense. Like he’s in imminent danger of just….fading away, like he doesn’t matter and never did and he’ll stop _existing_ and the world won’t even notice.

It’s a highly ironic feeling, because Ben always was the most dreaded member of the Umbrella Academy. He was always the one that sent people running, dropping their weapons and surrendering en masse. More than Luther’s strength or Diego’s knives or Allison’s rumors or Five’s speed, people were _terrified_ of the Horror.

None more so than Ben.

Ben digs his fingers into his arm and jerks his thoughts away from the past. He looks over to Klaus.

His brother is listening to the rehab counselor with an air of apathetic boredom. Ben has to give her credit for her strength of will (or just sheer obliviousness), because she pays it no mind and continues expounding on the benefits of sobriety.

“Okay, I’mma stop you right there,” Klaus says, breaking into the flow of her words. He smiles at her, devoid of feeling. “I’m not getting sober. My brother dumped me here _probably_ because he thought I was going to die otherwise, but he didn’t want to deal with me himself.”

“That’s probably true,” Ben acknowledges. Hell, Ben doesn’t want to deal with Klaus most of the time. Just because his brother is his only link to sanity doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve managed to foster a good relationship or anything.

“I understand why you might think that,” the woman says. “But it’s very hard on family members to see someone they love go through an addiction. Your brother -”

“Pff, I’m not going _through_ anything,” Klaus rolls his eyes. “I’m staying just where I am, thank you _very_ much.”

“Which is why you’re going to die before you’re twenty-five,” Ben mutters. He’s not joking. It’s honestly a miracle Klaus has made it this long.

“Taking care of your body is -” the woman tries.

Klaus interrupts her with a bark of sound that only technically qualifies as laughter. “Oh, it’s not _my_ body,” he says. “I’m just squatting.”

“At least you _have_ a body,” Ben snipes, fed up with his brother’s dramatics.

Ignoring Klaus’ thin-lipped glare, Ben walks through the wall and down the hall.

He needs to vent.

**********

If anyone other than Klaus were to look into the alley a block from the rehab center, they would see a normal alley. There are a couple dumpsters up against the wall, and a few more trash bags scattered around. Mysterious and disgusting-looking stains are abundant, although that doesn’t seem to deter whichever homeless person has set up a refrigerator box of tattered blankets and old clothing.

If Klaus _were_ to look in the alley, he’d see - well, all of that, but his attention would probably be mostly caught by Ben screaming his head off.

It’s not something Ben can ever do, around Klaus. His brother is twitchy enough when it comes to his powers, and ghosts in general. And, well, Ben is now a ghost. He’s learned a few things about Klaus’ fear of ghosts, these past six years. Namely, that it’s the only thing that can compete with his love of drugs. The ways it dictates his relationship with Ben is a long and varied list.

Klaus can never bring himself to get within arm’s length of Ben, like Ben will suddenly reach out and grab at him. He usually avoids Ben’s eyes, but Ben has caught him staring intently sometimes, like he’s trying to figure something out. He has an almost pathological need to do the opposite of whatever Ben tells him to. Whenever Ben phases through things, Klaus goes quiet and still, like he’s remembering all over again what Ben is. He’ll pretend Ben doesn’t exist one minute, then suddenly chatter like there’s no tomorrow, then swing back the other way with no warning. Once, when he was high enough that his heart stopped a few minutes later, he begged Ben not to ‘steal’ him, whatever that means.

And the few times Ben has lost his temper at Klaus and actually _shouted_ at him, Klaus had a panic attack. Every time.

Ben isn’t an idiot. He’s pieced things together, from Klaus’ utterances during his panic attacks and his reactions to Ben’s anger, and he’s pretty sure he knows what kind of training Dad subjected him to. It’s like Ben’s own memories of screams and meat and bloodbloodblood, the kind of trauma that clings to the very soul and refuses to let go.

So. Ben cannot yell at Klaus. No matter what, no matter how frustrating and annoying and obstinate and _stupid_ his brother is being, Ben cannot ever lose his temper. The temptation is overwhelming on some (most) days, when Klaus sells himself and throws away money and takes too many drugs and never _listens,_ but Ben manages to keep himself from yelling at his brother.

To his face, anyways.

“- hate you, I fucking _hate_ you, you’re going to die and you won’t even fucking _care,_ do you know what I would give to be alive? Do you _fucking know what I would do? No!_ ” Ben rails at the empty alley. “No you don’t, because you’re too busy drinking and whoring and overdosing and _ignoring me_ and spitting in the face of anyone who tries to help you! You’re going to get beaten to death by your _fucking customers **and no one is going to care!”**_

He screams in frustration again, the sound echoing against the walls. It’s very cathartic.

Ben collapses on the ground, breathing hard. He doesn’t need to breathe, exactly, but he doesn’t want to get used to not. It just reminds him of what he’s lost. His fingers are wound in his hair, and he sags against the rough brick of the alley wall. He stares, dully, at the sky.

It’s a bit past noon. He’s been screaming for….a while, then.

It takes another twenty minutes or so for him to feel somewhat steadier. Less like he’s going to fly apart at the slightest push. His breathing isn’t harsh anymore, and his grip isn’t crushing as he hugs himself.

He still stays put for another half-hour, just soaking in the silence of the city, before he sighs quietly to himself and heads back to the center.

Klaus isn’t in his room when Ben checks, so he wanders through the halls. They’ve been in this particular rehab center once before, three years ago. That time was thanks to Diego as well, although Allison always pays for it. Ben would tell them to stop wasting their time, but. Well. It kept a roof over Klaus’ head last night. Even if that’s all it achieves, it’s still _something._

_“- and with this front moving in, we’ll be expecting a cold snap tonight, so be sure to bundle up, everyone. Temperatures are expected to drop to -”_

Ben blinks, and turns his head to look at the television. The weatherman is gesturing at the swirl of colorful fuzz behind him.

_“- might even get some snow tomorrow, who knows. All I know is I’m definitely wearing my mittens when I’m heading home tonight, and you should too!”_

Ben closes his eyes and utters a very quiet, but no less heartfelt, _“Fuck.”_

A cold snap. Tonight. That’s….great. That’s just _great._

Ben runs a hand over his face, before resuming his search for Klaus.

When he finds him, his mood plummets even further.

Because Klaus is in the middle of raiding the kitchen. It’s a sound strategy, one Ben hardly even objects to. Klaus is stuffing his clothes with as many nonperishables as he can carry, and each energy bar or can of tomato paste means he’ll go that much longer without starving. But being here at all means he’s planning on running, and running soon.

Well. The direct approach has never really worked, but it’s the best option he has.

“You need to stay another night,” Ben says.

Klaus jumps, and looks up at Ben, eyes wide.

“Ben! How nice to see you,” Klaus exclaims, throwing his hands wide and sending a huge canister of oregano clattering to the floor. “Shit, fuck, hold on,” he says, scrambling to pick it up. A can of something falls out of his pockets as he bends over. “Damn it!”

Ben patiently waits until Klaus is steady on his feet again. Relatively, anyways. He can recognize the telltale tremor in Klaus’ hands, and knows Klaus is edging into sobriety. Not quite there, but he’ll be coming down by tonight if he doesn’t take anything.

Well, tough luck.

“You need to stay another night,” Ben repeats.

Klaus shoots him an incredulous look. “Exsqueeze me?”

“There’s a cold snap coming tonight,” Ben says, laying out his argument like he’s in a courtroom. “It’s Wednesday, which is always slow in customers, so I doubt you’ll be able to find another place to sleep. They’re saying it might snow -”

“No,” Klaus says immediately, “Nope, no, nada, no way -”

“If you stay the night, you can leave early in the morning, Klaus, just stay the night -”

“No thank you, brother dear, I need a little pick-me-up and they’re being _quite_ unreasonable about letting me have it -”

Ben feels that old familiar frustration bubbling up. And just after he vented it out, too. “Klaus, if you leave, you might die tonight. The temperatures are going to be well below freezing and you don’t have any other clothes because you sold all your things for drugs _again -_ ”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m incorrigible, I know - look, I’ll figure it out, pipe down -”

“No,” Ben says, clenching his teeth together. “No, Klaus, you need to stay. One night, just one -”

“Nah. Just not feeling it, you know how it is, the whole _atmosphere_ just isn’t to my tastes -”

“You’ll _die -_ ”

“Don’t be so dramatic -”

“You _will!_ Goddammit, Klaus, would you shut up and _listen_ to me for once -”

“I am, I’m just choosing to ignore you -”

“Which you always do -”

“Your point?”

_“You are going to get yourself killed -”_

“I don’t really think you get a say here, bro, it’s my life -”

_“Shut up!”_ Ben snaps. “Just _shut up!_ Why can’t you ever fucking _listen_ to me, you need to stay inside tonight because otherwise _you will die!_ You’ll freeze to death in an alley and I’ll have to watch and all because you can’t go without drugs for _one **fucking** day,_ you goddamn junkie!”

Ben sucks in a sharp breath, surprised at how the words seemed to have exploded out of him. He looks at Klaus, and -

Oh.

Fuck.

Klaus is very, very still. His pupils have shrunken to pinpricks, and he doesn’t seem to be breathing.

“Klaus, wait -” Ben says, holding up his hands. He takes a step - backwards, not forwards.

It doesn’t help.

Abruptly, Klaus isn’t in the kitchen anymore. He’s somewhere else, somewhere only he can see, and he isn’t coming back anytime soon.

Ben hisses out a breath and runs his hands through his hair, pulling a bit harder than necessary. For fuck’s sake, he _just_ went and had a private tantrum _specifically_ to avoid blowing up at Klaus. And now Klaus is having a panic attack in a restricted section of the rehab center solely because Ben couldn’t keep his mouth shut. From the looks of it, Klaus isn’t going to become cognizant for several hours at least.

There are a few different kinds of panic attacks, when it comes to Klaus. The first kind, as far as Ben can tell, comes from whatever Dad did for his training. Klaus will scream and scream and _scream_ as if he’s gone deaf, scrabbling at the walls and floor around him like he can dig his way through. He always keeps his nails cut brutally short, because otherwise they get split open when these attacks happen.

The second kind comes from angry ghosts - which, considering Klaus has made sure he hasn’t seen any other ghosts since he was in his early teens, usually means whenever Ben slips up. Those attacks see Klaus curling up into a ball, hands over his ears like Ben is blaring the 1812 Overture on bass speakers. He sobs, great big ugly ones that wrack his whole body. It’s fifty-fifty if someone touching him will help when this happens - sometimes it snaps him out of the attack, sometimes it makes him transition to Type 1.

Ben doesn’t like to think about the third kind.

This is a Type 2. Klaus shakes and shudders, hands over his head as if to protect himself. He’s crying, gasping like he’s drowning on dry land, and rocking back and forth on the floor. Ben swallows and looks away.

There’s a goddamn _reason_ he tries not to trigger these attacks.

Of course, Klaus isn’t all that quiet when he’s like this. Within a few minutes, a worker comes across him, and calls in more employees. They rush in, keeping a circle of space around Klaus, and hurriedly discuss how they can get him to calm down.

Ben leaves.

It’s not entirely selfish, he tells himself. Klaus rarely wants to talk to him after any of his panic attacks, but especially Type 2s. Once in awhile seeing Ben actually starts the whole process over again. It’s really best for both of them that Ben not be there when Klaus comes back to himself.

Especially since Ben is getting his way, he realizes. The rehab employees probably won’t let Klaus out of their sight, between finding Klaus like this and realizing he must have been stealing food to run away. He won’t have another window to run away until….at least tomorrow, probably.

He’ll be out of the cold tonight. Just like Ben wanted.

Ben sighs again.

God.

He needs to vent again.

**********

When Ben returns, the sun is long gone over the horizon. He didn’t go far - it always feels vaguely uncomfortable to get too far from Klaus - but he did delay. Because he knows what Klaus is going to be like when they meet up again.

Well. Actually. Ben _doesn’t_ quite know what Klaus is going to be like. Klaus has devoted his entire life to never coming down from his high, and now he’s getting sober for the first time in….a decade, maybe? God, maybe more.

Ben hardly even remembers what Klaus is _like_ when he’s sober. He’s not so sure Klaus remembers either.

One thing Ben is sure of, though: a decade-long high is going to have a _hell_ of a crash. Klaus can be a handful - scratch that, _two_ handfuls - when he’s just living his life; Ben can’t imagine what kind of holy hell he’s going to be wreaking when he’s going through the mother of all withdrawals.

Ben loiters outside the center, and seriously debates staying away for the night.

But he takes a deep breath, and sucks it up. He’s the one that pushed for this, he should at least witness the consequences.

Except when he finds Klaus, he’s….surprisingly calm.

Klaus is in his room, wearing baggy sweats probably given by the center. His movements are jerky and his hands are trembling, true, but he seems to be entirely in his right mind, moving about the room with confidence. The chair has been carefully disassembled into smaller parts - and it must have been done carefully, because it’s a wooden chair and the ends are jagged and broken and _would_ have made noise unless wrapped in the discarded blanket in the corner. The pieces are organized neatly on the desk, except for a long jagged spear lying on the bed. Klaus is pacing along one wall, tapping out the beat to some bubbly pop song.

Ben blinks, and rubs at his eyes.

The movement catches Klaus’ attention. He looks over at Ben.

“Oh, Ben!” Klaus grins. _“Hey.”_

And - there’s a look in Klaus’ eyes that puts Ben on edge. It’s something dark and wild, something fundamentally _dangerous._ Klaus’ fingers stop tapping, and his hand drops to his side.

He looks wrong - angles too sharp and put together not quite like a human should be. There’s a kind of limpness to him, like he’s held up by a string in danger of breaking.

“...Withdrawal kicking in?” Ben says.

Something in Klaus’ eyes changes, but Ben can’t quite tell what. It makes his expression look flat and brittle, even though his face doesn’t move a muscle.

“Yep,” Klaus says, popping the ‘p.’ He’s still grinning. “I’m not leaving, looks like. They locked the door.”

“They what?” Ben startles. He looks over at the door.

“Yeah,” Klaus says. “I asked them to.”

Ben blinks.

He blinks again.

“....What,” he says slowly.

Klaus hates being locked in places. He’s terrified of it. Ben remembers - he remembers when they were eight and Klaus started sleepwalking and Mom had to lock him in his room and he cried for _days._ Being locked in places always, always triggers a Type 1 panic attack, and it never lets up until he can get out.

Klaus _hates_ being locked up.

Why would he _ask_ for it?

Klaus folds his arms, and Ben can see the red indents where his nails already dug in. Klaus shivers.

“For the best,” Klaus mumbles, staring at the wall. “For the best. Safer that way.”

“Safer?” Ben repeats. “Klaus, what - how far are you into withdrawal? Are you hallucinating?”

“Ben,” Klaus says, a little distantly, “Could you do me a favor and kindly fuck off? Tonight isn’t going to be pretty.”

“...I don’t think so, no,” Ben says slowly, eyeing his brother. “You’re being weird. Weirder than usual, I mean.”

Klaus looks like he might argue for a second, but then he sags and visibly gives up. “Fine. Whatever.”

Ben watches as Klaus shivers again, digging his nails deeper into his skin. He picks his way over to the bed, and lays down on it. He pulls up the piece of broken chair leg and cradles it against his chest, like it’s a teddy bear.

The silence stretches out. Ben debates with himself over asking Klaus what the _fuck_ is going on, and eventually decides against. Weird behavior or no, Klaus is going to need all his energy to make it through withdrawal tonight, and explaining himself clearly would take concentration away from what’s really important here.

At least, that’s what Ben tells himself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at the end.

It’s around two in the morning when Ben starts seeing the ghosts.

He’s never seen them before. Klaus has been high for all of Ben’s death and a good part of his life as well, and while Ben isn’t sure why Klaus sees _him_ it’s pretty obvious they’re connected somehow. Klaus can always see Ben, Ben can only see whatever ghosts Klaus can.

They’re a bit different than he’s expecting.

For one, he didn’t quite appreciate it when Klaus described them as looking like how they died. Ben died pretty messily, but he doesn’t have a single injury on him, so he guesses that sort of let him - gloss over what ‘looking like they did when they died’ means for the other ghosts.

Because these ghosts don’t look like people. They look like corpses. Pallid skin, bloody clothes, blank staring eyes - it’s like a zombie movie, and Ben suddenly realizes exactly why Klaus hates that genre.

The rehab center has dozens of ghosts, all trailing mournfully through the halls. They keep crying, sobbing, shrieking at the pain of their wounds. They keep tripping over themselves, rediscovering their deaths, screaming in denial, looping back around to shocked horror at the realization that they’re dead, they’re dead, how can they be _dead -_

And, increasingly, they start to notice Klaus.

Not all of them, but considering he’s behind a closed door it’s pretty damn suspicious how many gravitate towards him.

They moan and reach for him, mumbling out broken pleas and deathbed secrets. They get restless when he ignores them, curled up against the wall and rocking back and forth, and start spitting venom, faces twisting up into hatred and anger.

“Fuck,” Ben says, stumbling back. “I - _fuck._ ”

He tries to reach for one of them to drag it away (and it’s definitely an _it,_ nothing left of the person it used to be, and god, for the first time does Ben ever understand Klaus’ unbridled terror around him those first few months after manifesting), but his hand goes right through its shoulder. Apparently ghosts can’t even touch each other.

“Fuck,” Ben repeats. He looks over at Klaus, who’s clearly hanging onto sanity by a thread, battling a war on two fronts. “I - shit, Klaus -”

Klaus’ head _snaps_ up, and his frightened eyes meet Ben just as the ghosts fall silent.

The suddenness of it is more shocking than anything in the past hour. Ben blinks.

Then Klaus moans, like he’s in pain.

“No,” he says. “No, Ben, why’d you have to say that….”

“What?” Ben says.

“Klaus.”

It’s not Klaus who speaks, but one of the ghosts, a stringy-haired junkie with slit wrists. She’s looking at Klaus contemplatively, and he flinches back from her gaze.

“Klaus,” she repeats, and slowly, a smile spreads over her face. _“Klaus.”_

And Ben realizes he just made a very big mistake.

“Klaus,” the ghosts murmur amongst themselves. _“Klaus. Klaus.”_

With a whine of fear, Klaus buries his head in his knees.

“....Oh,” Ben whispers, staring at the crowd.

“Help us, Klaus,” a ghost demands, the hole in his head leaking blood. “Help us!”

“It’s not fair,” another says. “Klaus, you have to help us, it wasn’t fair! I shouldn’t have died!”

“ _You_ should die, Klaus,” yet another adds spitefully. “Why do _you_ get to be alive?”

“Hey,” Ben says, but his voice is too quiet to be heard. He clears his throat. “Hey! Shut up! Leave him alone!”

No one listens to him (like always).

“- should die, you should die, Klaus, it’s not fair -”

“- it was horrible, I was choking and gasping and -”

“- you have to tell them, Klaus, you have to -”

“- why won’t you help us, Klaus, you need to -”

“- it doesn’t hurt, I promise it doesn’t hurt, it makes the hurting _stop_ -”

“- Klaus, Klaus, Klaus, Klaus -”

“Your name is Klaus?”

Ben almost misses him among the throng of ghosts surrounding Klaus.

But when he tries (unsuccessfully, once more) to pull the ghosts away, he turns and catches a glimpse of one, standing on the edge of the room and glaring at Klaus -

\- and wearing a very familiar face.

“What kind of name is _Klaus?_ ” the ghosts spits, sneer emblazoned across his face.

The face Ben last saw yesterday, clutching his arm and bleeding out in an alleyway.

The wound from Diego’s knife is gushing out an endless stream of blood, painting the guy’s clothing. He’s looking at Klaus with open, naked hatred, eyes flinty and cold. His fingers curl into claws, over and over again.

“Fucking whore,” the ghost says. “You fucking - did you thank your little guard dog for killing me? Give him a little discount when you got on your knees? But any money for you at all is a fucking waste, you know, goddamn little slut -”

It’s unclear if Klaus is hearing him over the rest of the ghosts. God, Ben hopes he isn’t. He stands in the middle of the room, spitting vitriol at Klaus, and Ben cannot help but realize just why Klaus isn’t phased by the things some of his rougher customers say.

Klaus is still on the bed, and he seems to have gone catatonic. That’s - honestly, it’s probably the kindest option.

The ghosts don’t seem to like it, though, and especially not the guy. His face twists, and he shoves his way to the forefront of the crowd.

“Hey!” he shouts, pushing his face up against Ben’s brother. “Hey, you fucking whore, _listen to me when I’m talking to you!_ ”

Finally, Ben breaks out of his paralysis.

“No,” he says, rushing forward, some unidentifiable emotion seizing him. “No, get away from him, _fuck_ you -”

The ghost pays him no mind, and Ben’s hands go through him like all the others. The ghost reaches out to Klaus, grasping and clawing like he wants to personally imitate the Horror’s ministrations, and Klaus jerks as the arms phase into him -

\- and then there’s a flash of blue.

And

every

single

ghost

vanishes.

Ben blinks.

“...What?” he says, looking around. “What - Klaus, did you -”

He looks at Klaus, blinking dazedly on the bed.

“Did you banish them?” Ben asks. “Holy shit, Klaus, did you banish them?”

Klaus shudders. He screws up his face in confusion.

“That’s great,” Ben says, looking around the room to see that yes, the ghosts really are all gone. “Klaus, this is - this is fantastic, you can keep them away, you don’t _need_ the drugs, you can just - develop this, and keep them away on your own. This is _amazing,_ Klaus.”

Klaus slowly uncurls from his fetal position. He looks around the room, blinking sluggishly. He sways dangerously, and has to prop himself up with his hands.

The movement lets the piece of the chair fall away from him onto the bedspread. He blinks down at it, expression confused.

“What the fuck,” Klaus mumbles blankly.

“I’m still not sure what you were doing with that,” Ben says, looking at it. “But whatever. Klaus, you can _banish ghosts._ ”

“What the….” Klaus says, rubbing at his face. He sways again, and looks ill.

Ben is abruptly reminded that banishing or no, Klaus is still an addict going through withdrawal. He deflates a little, but not too much.

“You should rest,” Ben advises. “I know it’s hard, but you just have to get through this, alright? Just try and rest.”

Klaus doesn’t listen, though. He pulls back his hand from his face, and his attention is caught by the palm tattoo. He stares at it, almost puzzled, before an expression of dawning realization breaks over his face.

“Holy shit,” Klaus breathes. “Holy _shit._ ”

Ben blinks.

“...Klaus?”

But Klaus doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even glance at him.

There’s a tiny, tiny part of Ben’s mind that points out Klaus hasn’t acknowledged him since the light.

“Klaus,” Ben says, more firmly. “Klaus, could you look at me?”

He doesn’t. Instead, Klaus lets out a sharp bark of laughter. It’s thin and high, like breaking glass, and there’s a glint in his eye that makes Ben want to take a step backwards.

“What the _fuck,_ ” Klaus says again, except this time it’s gleeful, filled with childish wonder. It’s at odds with the sheer _satisfaction_ on his face.

“Klaus, can you see me? _Klaus!_ ” Ben begs. The Horror writhes inside his stomach, demanding to be let out, except there’s nothing it can do.

His brother can’t see him. Klaus - did Klaus turn off his powers or something? Is it permanent? Panic claws at the inside of Ben’s throat as he’s presented with the possibility of Klaus _not being able to see him._ That’s - no, please, it can’t be like that, it can’t, _please -_

“Well,” Klaus says, and there’s the edge of a smile tugging at his lips. “Well, guess you’re good for something, _Klaus._ ”

Ben

stills.

“....What.”

Ben looks closer at Klaus. He’s - he looks - strange. Different. Same face, but there’s a harder edge to it. And the smile on his face is something Ben hasn’t ever seen before on his brother. Mocking, cold, _cruel._

Klaus chuckles breathlessly, and settles himself on the bed more stably. The laugh turns into a wheeze, and he has to wrap his arms around himself and catch his breath, but he never loses that little smile.

“Damn,” Klaus says, after he takes a deep breath. “God, you just had to be an addict, didn’t you? Fuckin’ junkie whore. You know, I’m glad I didn’t fuck you after all.”

Ben….stares.

“You’re not Klaus,” he whispers.

The blankets get wrinkled and bunched as Klaus - Klaus’ body - _the thing that isn’t Klaus_ \- gathers his feet under himself, kneeling on the bed. One of his hands props him up, and even though he can barely stay upright under his own power the sight is more terrible than anything the Horror has ever done.

“Where am I, anyways,” Not-Klaus mutters, looking around the room.

“Stop,” Ben chokes out, because that’s _Klaus’ voice_ except that _thing_ is using it, Klaus’ body except it’s held stiffly and strangely, Klaus’ face but it’s wrongwrong _wrong._ “Stop it, _stop it, get out of him -_ ”

The thing pays him no mind, instead shaking his head and almost falling over. He steadies himself again, suddenly struggling to breathe, and a look of irritation crosses his face.

“Fucking - junkie -” he pants.

There’s a high keening noise in the air, and it takes Ben a second to notice he’s the one making it. He grabs at his hair, and feels the wetness on his cheeks. He can’t stop staring at the thing that isn’t his brother. Why can’t he stop?

Slowly, carefully, the thing scoots over to the edge of the bed. He swings his legs over the side, and grips his arms again, leaning forward.

“Fuck,” he gasps. “Fuck -”

Then he vomits on the floor.

He coughs and chokes, ignorant of Ben’s broken pleas and threats. He wipes his mouth on the sleeve of the sweatshirt he’s wearing, and looks down at the floor.

The scene is very blurry now, for some reason, but Ben still sees him scowling.

“God,” the thing says, sounding winded. “You fucker. Couldn’t even leave me a body in good shape. I’d kill you, but. Ugh.”

“Don’t,” Ben says, crying in earnest now. “Don’t, please, don’t hurt him, let him _go,_ just let him go -”

“Huh,” the thing says, sounding like something has just occurred to him. “I could kill that other fucker, though. How’d _he_ like to be stabbed?”

Ben flinches, violently. “No,” he says, unable to come up with anything else. No pleading, no threats, just _no._ It’s the only response he can muster to the idea.

“Yeah,” the thing says anyway, smile growing wider. “Yeah, that sounds -”

But he doesn’t finish the sentence, because his hand takes that moment to jerk out, lighting quick, and grab onto the broken chair leg. Without hesitation, it _stabs_ the jagged end into Klaus’ thigh.

There is absolute silence for one long, long second, both Ben and the thing staring at the wound in shock.

Then the thing _screams,_ high-pitched and loud, and Ben stumbles back because Klaus hasn’t _ever_ screamed like that in all the time Ben has been dead, and the thing falls to the floor and the spear is sticking out of his leg and there’s blood pumping out of the wound all over the floor and -

\- there’s another _burst_ of blue light.

And then the guy is on the floor, gasping and clutching at his leg, no longer spurting out blood, and Klaus is there, it’s really Klaus, it _is,_ because he instantly stops screaming and instead sucks in a breath through gritted teeth and bows his head like he always does when he’s in pain, tense and quiet like that will spare him from receiving more.

 _“Klaus,”_ Ben blurts out, entirely on reflex.

His brother doesn’t answer right away, but after a few deep breaths, Klaus looks up at him.

Their eyes meet, and Ben feels - he almost falls over in pure _relief,_ because Klaus is looking at him and if he’s doing that then he really, truly is Klaus, not that horrible _thing_ that was wearing his brother’s body like an old coat.

“Hey, Ben,” Klaus grits out, the words sounding like broken glass and gravel.

“Klaus,” Ben breathes, and then he’s scrambling down next to his brother, kneeling on the floor (splattered with Klaus’ blood but _he isn’t thinking about that_ ). “Klaus, what - what was that, what’s going on -”

“You fucker!”

Both their eyes snap over to the ghost on the floor. It’s sitting up now, staring at Klaus with a look of pure, unadulterated _rage._

Before he can even think about it, Ben is between the ghost and his brother. “Don’t even _think_ about it,” he snaps out, with a venom he never quite managed in life.

“Fuck off,” the ghost grits out, eyes fixed on Klaus. Ben shifts so the ghost can’t see him, but it just moves.

“No,” Ben hisses. “No, you aren’t touching him.”

An ugly expression slithers across the ghost’s face. “You can’t stop me,” it sneers.

There have been very, very few times that he and the Horror have been in agreement, but as it rumbles inside of him, in that empty endless space between worlds, calling for blood, Ben can’t think of any reason why he would deny it. The only problem is that he doesn’t think the Horror would have any more luck touching the ghost than Ben does.

….but the ghost doesn’t know that, does it?

“Oh, I can,” Ben says, thoughts racing. He gives the ghost a wide grin, the kind he sees on Klaus’ dealers when they see him coming. He nods his head at Klaus. “Do you know who he is?”

The ghosts blinks, thrown by the question. “Uh - what?”

“Do you know why you were able to possess him?” Ben says. “He’s the Seance. From the Umbrella Academy. Remember them?”

Ben can feel Klaus’ eyes boring into his back, the silent question _what are you doing_ hanging in the air between them. Ben prays for it to stay silent, just for a few minutes longer.

The ghosts frowns, before blinking.

“The Umbrella Academy,” it repeats. “Yeah. Yeah, I remember. Well, that explains it.” Its eyes return to Klaus, looking greedily. “That’s not changing my mind, though.”

Ben smiles, devoid of humor, and spreads his arms out wide, sleeves riding up over his wrists. “Didn’t think it would. But ask yourself: if _he’s_ the Seance….then _who am I?_ ”

The ghost looks at him for a few seconds, confused.

Then it hits. Ben can tell the exact second it figures it out, because he knows the expression. That exact expression. It’s eyes fix on the tattoo, the _fucking_ umbrella tattoo on Ben's wrist, the one he hated and loathed his whole life and death, but now he can't help but feel grateful for. The ghost sees it, and it's face was already corpse-pale, but it somehow manages to go even whiter. Its eyes widen, fear flooding its expression. Its body goes limp from the realization.

_“....Horror….”_

Ben’s smile tightens. “Yes.”

The ghost swallows. Its eyes dart from Klaus to Ben.

“You,” Ben says, very softly, staring the ghost in its eyes, “need to leave. _Right. Now._ ”

For a second, Ben isn’t sure it will work. That the ghost will call his bluff, dart towards Klaus and take him over again and Ben won’t be able to stop him. Just like always, he can _never_ stop them.

But then the ghost breaks. It jerks back in fear, scrambling to its feet, and _runs_ through the wall, casting one last fearful glance over its shoulder before it’s gone.

Ben stares after it, stunned.

It...worked. It _worked._

Sucking in a breath, Ben turns back around to face Klaus. His brother is squinting up at him, hands clamped firmly over the wound in his thigh. The spear of wood is still sticking out, like a bizarre flagpole.

“My hero,” Klaus breathes out, letting his head fall back to rest on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Blood, injury, self-mutilation, derogatory language/slurs.


	5. Chapter 5

“What was that,” Ben says, blankly.

Klaus opens his eyes and squints at him.

“....Just got possessed, Benny-boy,” he says after a moment, as if puzzled Ben would even ask.

“I,” Ben says. “I, no, I got that. You got possessed. But that - you. Why are you so calm. _Why are you so calm?_ You just got _possessed!_ Why the _fuck_ did you get possessed! _What the fuck was that!_ ”

Klaus regards him with an entirely inappropriate amount of calm. Why the fuck isn’t he freaking out? Some psychopath just _took over his body_ and now he has a spear in his leg!

The wound seems to have slowed its bleeding, at least. Klaus hasn’t pulled out the chair leg yet, which Ben remembers is the correct course of action. But he still has a hole in his leg. Fuck, he needs medical attention, how can they get him to a doctor?

“You haven’t put it together yet?”

Ben blinks at Klaus, his train of thought derailing.

“What?” Ben repeats. Again.

And then Klaus actually has the termity to _roll his eyes._ He sighs, as if Ben is the one being deliberately obtuse here.

“I never sleepwalked, Ben.”

For a moment, Ben is too scattered, too frazzled to connect the dots, and he just feels confusion. Of course Klaus sleepwalked. Ben remembers it very clearly. It started when he was eight, and Grace had to lock him in his room at night. No one ever really talked about it much, because it just wasn’t very interesting, and Klaus never really liked when it was brought up for some reason. He hadn’t done it in years, though, and Ben had certainly never seen him do it so he must have outgrown….

And then the picture _snaps_ into place with frightening, dizzing clarity.

Ben feels himself fall back on the floor. His face is slack, and he knows his eyes are wide, staring at his brother.

“There it is,” Klaus mutters, and then apparently deems Ben’s demolished worldview uninteresting. He starts inspecting his leg, poking at the spear and hissing softly under his breath.

“You,” Ben breathes, mind whirling, spinning, crashing, falling. “That. You. Always? You - _always?_ ”

“Look, can we set that aside for now?” Klaus says. “Only I think I need some bandages. There’s an infirmary here, right?”

“I, uh,” Ben says, blinking at Klaus (he was possessed, he’s been possessed before, he _knew_ he would be possessed tonight, jesus christ he _planned_ to stab himself -)

_“Ben,”_ Klaus snaps, a glint of annoyance entering his eyes now. “Earth to Ben! Freak out later, right now I need to know where the infirmary is _before it happens again!_ ”

And that jars Ben back to reality like nothing else could. For the first time, he notices how hard Klaus’ hands are trembling, how his eyes are wild pinpricks, how every muscle in his body is pulled taut, like they’re a hair from snapping.

“Right,” Ben says. “Right.”

Getting out of the room, it turns out, is actually already taken care of. Anticipating this sort of situation, Klaus prepped the hinges.

“They focus on the lock,” Klaus says absently as he removes the door from the frame. “Never go for the hinges, always the lock. And they can’t read my mind when we’re sharing a skull, thank _god,_ so they wouldn’t have any reason to check. Wish I could’ve - snuck out earlier, but. Withdrawal’s a bitch, you know. And - rehab infirmary’s bound to have - people. Might still, need to be - sneaky -”

“Save your breath,” Ben orders, because Klaus is looking incredibly grey in the face now. He can barely walk, limping heavily as he shuffles down the hall. He lists heavily to the side at every movement, and Ben honestly isn’t sure he’ll be able to get up again if he falls.

There are ghosts in the hallway. Apparently, whatever banishment effect the possession had on them, it didn’t push them far. Several of them moan and drift towards Klaus.

“Hey!” Ben says, putting himself between them and his brother. “Stay back, I’m warning you.”

“Won’t work,” Klaus huffs out. “That guy was - fresh dead, Ben. More - present. Coherent. These guys - won’t even hear you.”

“Stop _talking,_ ” Ben orders, because Klaus has to lean on the wall and catch his breath after speaking. The ghosts drift in closer, and Klaus flinches.

“Klaus,” one of the ghosts says. “Klaus, Klaus, help….”

“Please,” another ghost says. “My daughter - you have to tell her, please -”

Yet another ghost doesn’t even bother with speaking, just reaching out and grasping at Klaus, and Ben cries out and tries to pull it away but he can’t and _fuck there’s blue -_

But Klaus grasps onto the spear in his leg and _jerks_ it sideways.

Instantly, his face loses what little color it has left, and the blue fizzles out before it can form. Klaus sags against the wall, held up solely by his uninjured leg, and not very well at that. The wound starts dripping a fresh round of blood.

_‘Fuck,’_ Klaus mouthes, silently.

“Jesus fucking christ, Klaus,” Ben whispers, staring.

The ghost withdraws its hand, and looks - confused? Discomfited? It looks down at its own leg and moans quietly. Then it turns and hobbles off.

Ben stares after it.

“C’mon,” Klaus says, after he can speak again. His voice is raspy and ragged, thin enough to be nearly transparent. Ben can barely make it out underneath the pleas from the half-dozen ghosts that are crowding closer with every passing minute. “Gotta - hurry.”

Ben swallows, and can only nod.

They make it to the infirmary without Klaus mutilating himself any more. The ghosts seem reluctant to get too close, but that steadily erodes until Klaus limps as quickly as he can over to the cabinets, ghosts trailing on his heels. He lets out a panicked whine when they prove locked, and discards stealth entirely as he summons a strength Ben didn’t know he had to pull the doors off.

“Be quick,” Ben says, eyeing the security camera in the ceiling corner.

And Klaus is quick. He downs seven of the pills right away, and stuffs his clothing with at least a dozen more bottles. Swipes the needles, wipes, and a tourniquet. Then, at Ben’s urging, he gets gauze and bandages.

But then there’s a rise in the moans from the ghosts outside, and Ben pokes his head out and sees an actual living person trudging down the hallway - “Shit, Klaus, someone’s coming -”

Which is _apparently_ the signal for Klaus to pick up a scale and throw it through the window.

“What the fuck!” Ben says, jumping roughly ten feet in the air.

Klaus pays him no mind, instead throwing the bundle of medical supplies out after it. Then he shimmies out the frame, gaining a few new cuts in the process and jarring the spear again. He lets out a short screech and collapses onto the ground outside.

“Jesus christ, Klaus,” Ben repeats, phasing through the wall and staring down at him.

After a few seconds of ragged breathing from Klaus, there’s a sound of alarm from inside the infirmary. Klaus groans softly to himself, and staggers to his feet, clutching at the bundle like it’s a lifeline.

“Brilliant escape,” Ben says, trying to ignore how fast his nonexistent heart is beating. “Really. One of your best.”

Klaus really must be in an _extraordinary_ amount of pain, because he barely glares at Ben for that.

The rest of the center’s employees are roused, but Klaus knows these streets like he knows his own name - better, probably. There have been a couple times when he couldn’t figure out which of his names to use, but made his way to the nearest dealer just fine. Ben follows him as he disappears down a side alley.

The throng of ghosts is beginning to lose definition, features blurring and voices fading in and out like radio static. It’s unsettling to watch, actually. Ben has to look away, because however disturbing it is to see people walk around with lethal wounds, it’s somehow even more disturbing to watch their faces melt away into featureless blobs.

They get several blocks away before Klaus collapses in an alley. The ghosts are mere smudges by now, only the faintest whispers drifting through the air. Klaus’ face is mottled grey and white, and he seems to be having trouble breathing. He tries to get up again.

“Stop,” Ben says, crouching down next to him. “Klaus, just stop. You need to treat your leg.”

After a few seconds, Klaus’ eyes focus on him, and it takes a few more for them to show comprehension. But at last he gives a grunt, and starts rifling through the bundle.

The next several minutes are not for the faint of heart. Ben has to look away more than a few times, because even though he’s seen (and caused) far worse there’s really no way to be _okay_ with his brother pulling a spear of wood out of his leg and clumsily patching up the hole. A literal, actual _hole,_ jesus christ.

But after the wound has been cleaned and bandaged to the best of Klaus’ abilities (and after Ben directs him into taking some of the antibiotics), Klaus leans back against the alley wall and closes his eyes. He looks - better, at least. Although most of that is undoubtedly from the drugs in his system, and the total lack of non-Ben ghosts in sight.

Ben should really let him rest.

His mouth, though, seems to have other ideas.

“You want to tell me what the fuck that was now?”

Klaus very visibly debates ignoring him. Part of Ben can’t blame him, because however stressful tonight was for Ben it was even moreso for Klaus. But now all the panic Ben was brutally shoving away is returning with a vengeance. It settles in his gut not entirely unlike the Horror, but slowly spreads through his veins until it’s filling his lungs and throat, making it hard to breathe.

He doesn’t _need_ to breathe, but apparently that doesn’t matter to whatever fucked-up version of physics ghosts run on.

Thankfully, Klaus opens his eyes a sliver and looks over at Ben. His pupils are dilated enough that Ben suspects he isn’t even feeling the pain from his leg anymore.

“Mggh,” Klaus sighs, which at least probably translates to ‘fine, go ahead and ask.’

Ben runs a hand through his hair, looking up at the sky and back down at his brother.

“You - you’ve been possessed before,” Ben says. He intends for it to come out as a question, but it doesn’t.

“Mmmhmm,” Klaus hums, nodding loosely.

It knocks the wind out of Ben, hearing Klaus say it so easily. He knows some of that has to be because of the artificial calm of the drugs, but - _god._ How could Klaus have carried this for so long? And why didn’t Dad ever try to….

Ben blinks.

“Did Dad know?” he asks.

And some part of him knows the answer even before Klaus flinches and bites out a firm _“No.”_ Because if Dad had known - if he’d known, Klaus never would have been allowed to fall into drugs. Dad would have told Allison to rumor him into never touching a needle or pill bottle ever again, and then he would have doubled Klaus’ training until he either mastered his powers or broke.

Ben is pretty sure it would have been the latter.

“God,” Ben says.

“Mmm,” Klaus says. He blinks sluggishly. “Couldn’t - let him know. _No._ Gotta - stay _safe._ ”

“Safe from what?” Ben asks.

Klaus shoots him a look that implies Ben’s brainpower was lost along with his brain. “From _me._ ”

“....What?”

“I’m _safe,_ ” Klaus repeats genially, smile bleeding across his face like ink in water. He sighs contentedly. “Won’t hurt anyone. Won’t - hurt _you._ ‘M high now, so ‘m - _safe._ ”

Ben stares.

He -

He has to sit down.

Klaus’ eyes have slipped all the way closed by now, and within a few minutes his head is lolling and he’s letting out faint snores. His neck is going to be in agony once he wakes up, but that just means he’ll be taking more drugs.

Ben can’t really bring himself to register much about that. All of his brain is taken up in the involuntary recontextualization of _his entire childhood._

Because Klaus started taking drugs when he was - what, twelve? Maybe earlier. He definitely started drinking before they were ten. Ben can’t bring the exact age to mind, but now that he thinks about it, it _was_ around the time when he started sleepwalking, wasn’t it? Or not sleepwalking, apparently, but _being possessed by ghosts who wanted to hurt them._

Because Ben knows Klaus. Apparently not as well as he _thought,_ but probably better than any of their other siblings do. And he knows that for all his faults, Klaus cannot stand the idea of hurting another person. He hates the very idea. Ben occasionally wishes he wasn’t so opposed, because _fuck_ if some violence here and there would make his life infinitely easier, but that’s just the way he is. He hates hurting people, be they strangers or customers or even someone actively hurting _him._

So it is frighteningly easy to imagine what he’d do to avoid hurting his siblings.

It makes sense. It _makes sense_ in a way very few things about Klaus ever do. The drinking, the drugs, the desperation - god, even several mysteriously persistent injuries Klaus had as a child. If pain drives the ghosts out of him, it’s no wonder he was willing to stab himself at the first opportunity. Which, Ben now remembers, was when the ghost started talking about hurting Diego.

Ben has to put his face in his hands and hyperventilate for a while.

His brother can be possessed. His brother can be possessed by the apparently _universally_ malevolent spirits that are absolutely fucking everywhere. His brother has structured _his entire life_ around not being possessed by ghosts who want to hurt his siblings. His brother, who Ben grew up with and then got joined to at the hip for the last six years, managed to hide this so well Ben never even suspected a thing.

It’s almost impressive, if he overlooks the actual content.

Ben - tries to gather his thoughts. It’s hard, because they keep racing around and catching on fire, but it’s not like that’s particularly _new._ It takes some doing, but he eventually manages to put his faculties in something resembling a reasonable order.

He stares blankly at the side of Klaus’ head, and tries to think.

Okay. So. Klaus can be possessed. That is - saying that comes as a shock is something of an understatement, but it does make sense when looked at from a logical standpoint. There’s no reason for Klaus’ powers to be limited _solely_ to seeing and hearing the dead, and Dad did always say he had greater potential.

Klaus has been possessed before. That is - again, utterly unexpected, but still logical. It would have been extremely weird if he _could_ be possessed but just - _hadn’t,_ his entire life till now.

The reason Klaus got into drugs and alcohol was to protect his siblings.

That one is….

Ben doesn’t quite know what to feel about that one.

He swallows, and - sets that aside. For now.

Which just leaves him with the tiny, quiet question that pops up in the back of his mind. Ben ignores it, because - what the fuck. No. Absolutely not.

He shoves it away, slams the door on it, and welds the door shut. He’s not thinking about that.

It still waits, though, locked away but still undeniably _there,_ an ugly little blot in the corner of his mind.

_Could **I** possess him?_


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at the end.

The next morning, Klaus opens his eyes, squints at Ben with a befuddled look for roughly forty seconds, and then tips his head back and gives a long groan.

“I didn’t hallucinate that, did I,” he says, resigned.

“Which part?” Ben says sarcastically, crossing his arms to hide the fact that the Horror is more restless than usual. “The part where you got sober for the first time in a decade, the part where you got possessed, the part where you stabbed yourself in the leg, the part where you escaped from rehab, the part where you confessed you _never fucking sleepwalked_ \- there’s a pretty long list.”

Klaus groans again, throwing his hand over his eyes.

“Actually,” he says, slightly muffled, “I was talking about the part where you freaked out.”

“What, did you expect otherwise?” Ben says, throwing up his hands. “Klaus, you - you were _possessed,_ and apparently it’s happened before, and it’s dictated _your entire life_ since then!”

“Nope,” Klaus says, removing his hand from his eyes and bracing his arms against the wall. “Nope, no, I’m not dealing with this. Go have your revelation elsewhere, and hasn’t it been hours, you don’t need to sleep, haven’t you adjusted yet?”

Truthfully, Ben thought he _had._ Or, at least as much as he _can_ adjust to something of this magnitude. He spent the entire time Klaus was asleep cudgeling his head into accepting this revelation. But the instant Klaus woke up, all those feelings came rushing back, just as fresh as they were last night.

“Not really!” Ben says, trying to prevent himself from slipping into hysteria. He looks at Klaus and has to push away the overlay of that cold, cruel expression from last night. “Klaus, you - god, Klaus, why didn’t you ever _tell -_ ”

Klaus overbalances and crashes down onto the ground. He lets out a strangled scream as he lands on his wound.

“Fuck!” Ben says. He crouches down next to his brother. “Are you okay -”

_“Shut up!”_

Ben rears back, more out of surprise than offense, as Klaus snaps his head up and glares at him. It’s different from his usual glares. This one has an edge to it that Ben rarely ever sees on Klaus, the kind that only ever comes out when Ben seriously tries advocating for sobriety, or that one time when some guy on the train kept making crude comments about Allison.

“Just _shut up!_ ” Klaus says, hands curled into fists. “Stop - talking about it, it _happened,_ it’s _done,_ and it’s _never happening again,_ so just _shut the fuck up!_ Don’t - I -” Klaus breaks off, gasping.

Well. Fuck. Ben isn’t entirely sure what’s going through Klaus’ head right now, but that’s a twisty place at the best of times, and right now he seems to be on the verge of a panic attack. It’s probably not a good idea to push.

Besides, Ben has a horrible idea of exactly why his Type 3 attacks are the way they are.

“Okay,” Ben says, holding out his hands. Klaus’ eyes fix on him with laserlike intensity, and Ben carefully backs away. He used to be a little annoyed about the fact that Klaus can’t calm down unless he’s far out of arm’s reach (especially when the fastest way to calm him down when Ben was alive was physical contact), but after last night a really depressing amount of Klaus’ behavior is making sense now. “Okay, I’m shutting up.”

And he does. He stays quiet and still, hands held up in surrender. It would become uncomfortable very quickly if he still had a body, but as it is he could stay like this the entire day if need be.

Thankfully, though, he doesn’t have to. Klaus slowly relaxes as Ben keeps his word, and after about ten minutes his breathing has evened out and he’s comfortable enough to take his eyes off Ben.

However, they end up falling on the bundle from last night. Ben can _see_ the exact moment Klaus remembers what’s in there, because his eyes light up and the last of the tension leaves his shoulders. Ben only just manages to prevent himself from groaning as Klaus picks it up.

But Klaus has never listened to Ben - most times, but especially not when it comes to drugs. It would be useless to try. Ben can only watch as his brother unwraps the bounty from the infirmary.

“You should take more antibiotics,” is all he says, quietly.

Klaus shoots him a sharp glance, but when no other comments are forthcoming he grudgingly nods. The antibiotics are consumed, and Ben relaxes slightly.

Antibiotics are - very rare, for them. Ben just has to pray that every time Klaus gets cut or scratched that it won’t get infected. And considering how and where Klaus spends his time, prayer often isn’t enough. For a wound like this….

Frankly, if he hadn’t stolen the antibiotics from rehab, Ben would have pushed him to break into somewhere. They can’t take chances with something like this.

Ben doesn’t say anything as Klaus inspects the rest of the bottles. He gets more and more pleased with each one, so he must have stolen some pretty good stuff. Relatively, anyways, since Ben doubts there would be many narcotics in a rehab center.

But Klaus has never had high standards for drugs, so after taking a few more pills he gathers everything up and secrets it away in the pockets of the overlarge sweats he’s still wearing. Normally, seeing Klaus wear such mundane clothing would be completely bewildering, but the last twelve hours have sort of reset Ben’s Klaus-weirdness scale.

Then Klaus tries to stand.

“Whoa, wait, Klaus, what are you doing?” Ben says, scrambling to his feet.

Klaus gives him a look that says Ben should know perfectly well what Klaus is doing. And while Ben would usually be pleased that Klaus seems to be okay with Ben’s presence again, he’s too busy panicking over Klaus’ leg.

“I,” Klaus announces, “Am going to ensure business hasn’t dried up. And don’t get your little panties in a twist, I’ll see if I can find someplace for tonight.”

It takes a few seconds to understand what Klaus means.

“You’re going back to work,” Ben says. He thinks he should maybe feel annoyed, or disapproving, but there’s only a sinking, hollow sensation in his chest.

“Mmm,” Klaus says vaguely, focusing on keeping himself upright as he leans against the wall. He’s putting nearly all of his weight on his uninjured leg, which itself hasn’t entirely been in proper working order ever since that one customer dislocated it a few months back. But it holds his weight, and he shuffle-hops forward a few paces, a brief grimace crossing his face at every movement.

“Klaus….” Ben trails off.

“Don’t you start, Ben!” Klaus waves a hand, and nearly overbalances. He huffs a bit and straightens. “Come _on,_ you should be on my side now. I have to stay safe, and that means I need money to stay high! ~Gotta stay high, all the time, to keep them out of my mind~” he warbles, offkey.

Ben has no trouble seeing his brother is not nearly as lighthearted as he’s pretending he is. Klaus’ hands are shaking - nothing new there, but he can’t quite bring himself to look Ben in the eye either. His words are coming just a bit too fast to be casual. And, of course, his fake smile isn’t even close to his usual standards.

Which is the only reason Ben presses his lips together, holding in the crowd of protestations demanding to be let out, and stays quiet as Klaus limps out of the alley.

He also stays quiet as Klaus manages to locate a little hole-in-the-wall secondhand store that will take his sweatshirt (not the pants, though, soaked in blood as they are) in exchange for a ratty crop-top and black leggings.

Ben doesn’t say a word as Klaus manages, through determination and a luckily soft-hearted bus driver, to get back to his usual stomping grounds. There, he waits at his usual corner for a couple hours, until customers start coming by.

Ben doesn’t stick around for that. He never does. He’s not sure he could even if Klaus wanted him to, but they’re both entirely alright with the current method of doing things, so that works out nicely. If the customers look like they might like things - _rough,_ Ben might hang around within shouting distance, in case Klaus has a panic attack and needs to be calmed down before the customer gets annoyed and takes more drastic measures.

That hardly ever happens, though. He’s far more likely to just go catatonic.

Ben stares, blankly, at the wall in front of him.

It’s a slow realization. One that creeps through his veins like ice, so subtly he barely notices until he looks at his heart and sees it’s already frozen solid. One that doesn’t so much hit him as simply sit there, waiting to be acknowledged. He understands it, understands it as fully and completely as if he’s spent days poring over its every aspect, the moment it’s presented to him.

_Nothing will change._

The entirety of the past twenty-four hours has upended Ben’s entire worldview, given him revelations and context on things he never knew he needed to know, and irrevocably altered his view of Klaus. It’s raised questions Ben isn’t sure he wants the answers to and answered questions Ben never thought to ask. It’s a milestone only second to his own _death._

And yet: nothing will change.

Nothing _has_ changed, for Klaus. Sure, Ben knows now, but Klaus has known his whole life. For Klaus, getting possessed was simply a hazard he briefly couldn’t avoid. He isn’t going to stop selling himself or taking drugs or avoiding stability like the plague. He was _never_ going to do those things, apparently, and the only difference is now Ben knows why.

Ben sneaks a look back down the street. Klaus is getting into the passenger seat of a car, next to a man with a mustache so ridiculous it’s no wonder he has to pay for sex. They exchange a few words, Klaus as artificially bright and vibrant as ever, before he ducks down beneath the dashboard.

Ben looks away, feeling helplessness gather in his eyes, rage clogging his throat.

People walk up and down the street, mostly in the same profession as Klaus. Cars prowl along the street, stopping by them at near-random. Homeless people peer out of alleys, or head off with cardboard signs and little tin cans. The smell of overflowing dumpsters permeates the air. Everywhere Ben looks, there isn’t a single spark of hope or happiness, and everyone in sight is as dead as he is.

All business as usual.

Nothing has changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Prostitution, drug use.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess WHAT, guys! I've finished writing this story! It tops out at just over 50,000 words, so y'all can just settle in now. And now I'm writing the next one, which is gonna be a doozy, just you wait. Thank you all so much for your support (especially you, sara! couldn't have done it without you!).
> 
> Trigger warnings at the end.

“Nope,” Klaus says cheerfully, bouncing down the street. “Nope, no way, nada, no.”

“It was a close call this time,” Ben says, although there isn’t any real expectation of being listened to. They both know how this argument goes. “It was pure luck you convinced her to give you those last few pills. Not to mention she could have very well kept you _longer._ ”

“All’s well that ends well, Ben,” Klaus says brightly. He stumbles slightly, before recovering. Ben eyes his legs. Even with the stab wound healed over, it still causes him to limp when it’s cold out. Or, apparently, when he’s been tied to a bed for the past two days.

“Excuse me for being concerned,” Ben says dryly. Then he sighs. “Klaus, you’ve only gotten sober once in the past _thirteen years,_ and that’s - impressive.” And horrifying, but he has to appeal to logic here. “But you can’t keep it up forever. One day you’re going to slip up. You’ll run out of drugs an be unable to get more, and you _will_ get sober, and -”

“So I should do it sooner rather than later,” Klaus drawls. “I see.”

Ben notices the slight tension in Klaus’ jaw that means he’s getting less amused with the argument. Ben weighs his options, and decides to keep going just a little bit further. “No,” he says. “You should learn how to control it. It’s dictated your entire life, you need to turn the tables. You can prepare a place beforehand, make sure you’re safe -”

“I said no,” Klaus says.

There’s a warning note in Klaus’ voice now. Ben knows that tone.

He sighs, quietly, and stops talking. They continue walking down the street, now in silence, which Ben notices is a relief to some other pedestrians.

Fuck them. What do they know?

Here is what Ben knows: it’s been two years since he discovered Klaus can be possessed. Two years since Klaus was forcibly sobered in rehab. Two years since he’s seen any of his siblings - Diego tried to track him down once or twice, but Klaus avoided him and Diego eventually got the message. It’s been two years since Klaus has been even _remotely_ close to sobriety, and if he has his way it’s going to stay like that.

It turns out Ben was wrong about one thing - things _have_ changed, somewhat. Not for the better, of course, though if you asked Klaus he’d have a different answer. Ever since the possession scare, Klaus has doubled down on his efforts to stay awash in drugs. He’s built up stashes all over the city, hidden in loose bricks and abandoned buildings, so there’s the smallest possible chance that he might brush by sobriety. He stays out on street corners longer, buys fewer clothes and personal effects (even moreso than he did before, anyways), and absolutely refuses to entertain any suggestion of learning to control his powers.

He looks a lot worse, now. Klaus always was skinny and lanky, but now it’s clearly unhealthy, too-tight skin and angular bones all on display. If Ben is very persuasive and very patient, he can sometimes convince Klaus to eat once every day. Usually it’s every other day, though. There are a half-dozen track marks in his arms, and needles are his _least_ -preferred method of delivery. There are days when Klaus has the same conversation a dozen times over, because he keeps forgetting what he said.

Here is what Ben knows: he is watching his brother kill himself.

**********

“Two days?” Ian says, leaning a little farther out the car window. “And here you turned me down for the very same thing.”

Klaus smiles and rubs his head. “Weeeell, you know, she was - persuasive. You just aren’t quite there yet, babe.”

“I can be,” Ian says suggestively.

Ben glares at him. Ian isn’t the worst of Klaus’ customers, not by a long shot. But he exudes an undeniable air of _slime_ that’s so pervasive Ben has talked Klaus out of staying with him for more than a night, despite how often Ian offers for Klaus to stay longer.

“No, Klaus,” Ben says, when there’s a flicker of hesitance on his brother’s face.

Klaus shoots him a flat look, but he still shakes his head. “Sorry,” he tells Ian regretfully.

“Aw, come on,” Ian says, reaching out and cupping Klaus’ face. “I could be real good to you, Klaus.”

If Ben were actually alive, he would be having enormous difficulty holding back the Horror by now (not that he _would_ ). As it is, there’s still a decent amount of rumbling inside his abdomen. He glares at Ian as Klaus leans into the touch, eyes closed.

“Klaus,” Ben says again, sharper. He feels a pang of regret as Klaus tenses again, and reluctantly pulls away from Ian. Klaus always was a very tactile person, and it _hurts_ to make him lean away from even the small scraps he gets on the streets. But more often than not those scraps are coming from people who just want to use him up and throw him away, and Ben can’t let that happen (at least, any faster than it already is).

A flicker of annoyance crosses Ian’s face, but it smoothes out before Klaus opens his eyes. “Well,” Ian smiles. “Even if you aren’t up for the long haul, are we still good enough for one night? Got a nice fat bonus if you can do that tongue thing from last time.”

“I can do that!” Klaus says, lighting up. “And might I say, you have _excellent_ taste, my good sir.”

“Well, I certainly hope I taste good, that’d be a hit to my ego!” Ian laughs, ignoring how Ben is doing his level best to kill him through willpower alone.

Klaus climbs into the car, and Ben follows. There’s no danger of seeing something he’d rather not - Ian prefers to have Klaus on an actual bed. Thankfully, it’s almost always a motel, instead of at his apartment.

Ian and Klaus banter on the way to the motel. It’s always strange to watch, honestly - if someone were to just hear their conversation, they’d never guess that one of these men was a strung-out medium on the verge of starvation, and the other was going to pay to fuck him. They wouldn’t see the too-bright shine in Klaus’ eyes, or the way Ian glances at him, hungry and greedy and _possessive._

Ben leans his head back against the seat as they roll to a stop in the parking lot of a Motel 8. The one on Fortieth. Well, at least this one usually has clean sheets. Ian gets out of the car to rent a room, and silence falls between the remaining two occupants.

“Y’know,” Klaus says, and Ben looks at him in mild surprise. Klaus rarely _initiates_ conversation with him nowadays. “You don’t have to stay.”

Ben blinks. “I’m not,” he says, confused. “Watching you have sex isn’t my idea of a good time.”

“Mm,” Klaus says, waving a hand halfheartedly. “Nah, I mean - overall. You don’t have to stay with me. If you don’t like seeing me be - myself, you don’t have to stick around and watch. No one’s keeping you here.”

It takes Ben a second to realize what he’s saying.

“Wh- I’m not leaving!” Ben says, rearing back.

“Why not?”

There’s a hint of a challenge in Klaus’ tone, and Ben feels the Horror shift beneath his not-skin. There’s that familiar frustration welling up inside him, because he’s pretty sure Klaus is being purposefully obtuse here.

“Because,” Ben says, crossing his arms. “I’m pretty sure you’d be dead in a week without me.”

Maybe less. Klaus is _really_ bad at noticing hunger nowadays.

“So? Why do you care?” Klaus shoots back.

“Oh, for - you’re my brother, dipshit!” Ben snaps. “Of course I care!”

“Oh, yeah, really feelin’ the love here.”

Ben is about to reply with something probably unwise, but before he can say anything Ian comes back to the car. Ben swallows the words and glares at the man. It doesn’t do anything, of course, but it’s an outlet _marginally_ more healthy than unloading all his repressed rage on Klaus.

Even if Klaus sort of deserves it.

“Queen bed,” Ian says, waggling his eyebrows at Klaus.

Klaus snorts. “Too easy,” he says, and gets out of the car without a second glance at Ben.

Which is fine. Ben isn’t sure they’ll be capable of interacting for a while without devolving into another argument. He stares at a slow-drifting cloud in the sky as Ian and Klaus disappear into the room.

To be honest, most of their conversations these days are arguments. That, or one-sided interactions that probably don’t count as conversations, considering how Ben spends most of his time instructing Klaus to do things like ‘eat,’ ‘sleep,’ or ‘get away from him right now, I mean it Klaus.’ His brother isn’t really coherent enough for intelligent discourse, those times.

The root of the problem is the drugs. Or. Well. No. The _actual_ root of the problem is possession. It would be….difficult, to say the least, to convince Klaus that he needs to get clean for the sake of it. But as long as there’s the danger of being possessed, sobriety is utterly, irrevocably out of the question.

And if the way he lives endangers him….well. Ben figured out years ago that he cares more about Klaus’ life than Klaus does. He’s never cared to figure out precisely how much, but. He has a decent idea.

He’s….tried. To convince Klaus to learn to control the possession. He knows it’s terrifying - that night is still stamped into Ben’s memory, and he knows he’d have nightmares if he ever slept - and it’s even more terrifying for Klaus. It’s defined his brother’s entire life, in ways Ben is still uncovering. For Klaus, possession is the boogeyman, the monster under the bed. Always there, always waiting, malevolent and all-consuming and eager to take him over and hurt as many people as possible. There _is_ no controlling it, in his mind, just eternal evasion.

Ben, of all people, can tell him that’s not going to work out.

Because monsters don’t just go away when you want them to. Once Klaus is forcibly sobered again - and it _will_ happen, their luck won’t allow for anything else - he’ll be ripe for the taking. Ghosts will possess him, and no matter how much control he manages to yank away he’s not going to be able to drive them _all_ out without either crippling or killing himself.

He might consider that an acceptable outcome. Ben does not.

Ben presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. He counts to ten. Then a hundred. It doesn’t help as much as it used to, and it never actually did much. There’s still that slimy, sour well of emotion in his chest. It’s a mixture of feelings; endless frustration towards Klaus and absolute hatred towards his customers and useless helplessness towards himself and sheer rage at absolutely _everyone._ It’s so much a part of him by now he can hardly remember a time when he didn’t have it, simmering away, a hair from erupting.

….Fuck this. Klaus is going to be with Ian for the rest of the night, and he needs to vent.

Ben phases through the car, and heads off into the night.

**********

Ben finds himself wandering through the streets after screaming himself - well, not hoarse, because he can’t get hoarse now. But if he still had a physical throat, it would be raw and aching by now.

It’s quiet, in this part of town. The apartments are almost upscale, the buildings are un-graffitied, and even the streetlights are all working. It’s like looking at a funhouse mirror of Klaus’ usual stomping grounds. Same base material, but the results are so much better off.

Which makes Ben think, involuntarily, about his siblings.

Luther is still at the Academy. Probably will be until the day he dies, honestly. In a way, he’s just as hopeless as Klaus. Though at least he has a roof over his head, and regular meals.

Diego is - Ben doesn’t know where Diego is, thanks to Klaus’ avoidance campaign, but he can’t imagine Diego falling on terribly hard times. Maybe he’s a police officer now, he was working his way towards that the last time he and Klaus had a civil conversation.

Allison is easiest to keep track of. She’s in this movie, in that magazine, red carpet after red carpet, flitting about Hollywood like it’s her personal banquet. Ben wonders how his niece is doing. He’s never met her.

Who knows where Five is. Ben doesn’t really like thinking about it.

Vanya might live someplace like this. Quiet and clean and safe, where she can practice her music and have a blessedly normal life. Klaus never tried seeking out _any_ of their siblings, but he’s always been absolutely adamant that he never go near Vanya. Ben can understand that. Small, shy Vanya shouldn’t have to come in contact with the world Klaus lives in.

(Klaus is of the slightly different opinion that she shouldn’t come in contact with _him,_ and Ben suspects he’d still think that even in the admittedly unlikely scenario he gets sober and becomes a fully-functioning member of society. Ben is pretty sure that kind of thinking is unhealthy, but he’s already fighting several losing battles, he doesn’t need to take up one more.)

Thinking about his siblings is painful. Whenever Klaus skirts near the Academy, Ben _could_ check up on Luther, but he stopped doing that years ago. Seeing his brother look straight through him is - well. There’s a reason he didn’t really protest when Klaus ran away a couple months after the funeral.

Sometimes, though, Ben can’t help but take out those memories and run through them like a well-worn book. They’re faded, but he can recall when they were a real family, one with laughter and love. Sneaking out to Griddys, playing tag in their free time, sharing worthless little secrets they thought meant everything. Just them against the world.

Ben realizes he’s standing in the middle of the street, staring at nothing.

He swallows, and keeps walking.

The sky lightens after a while, and Ben makes his way back to the motel. Ian’s car is still there, and Ben wrinkles his nose. He elects to sit on the curb instead.

It’s approaching noon when Klaus and Ian do come out. Both of them are quite obviously post-coital, with mussed clothes and uncombed hair, but Klaus is the one limping slightly, deep bags under his eyes.

Klaus’ eyes lighten fractionally when they land on Ben, like Klaus wasn’t sure he’d be here. Ben knows they probably won’t ever bring up last night’s exchange, but it feels like he has the last word, and that’s something, at least.

Then Ian takes the moment to pull Klaus up against him and give a long, borderline-indecent kiss.

Klaus doesn’t resist, and judging by the way he leans against Ian he’s probably on something pretty strong. Ian’s doing, of course. He’s fond of giving Klaus drugs. Ben wonders if Klaus even remembers what Ian did to him last night.

Eventually Ian stops kissing Klaus, but he doesn’t let go, keeping Klaus pressed up against him. Klaus blinks up at him with wide eyes.

“Sure you don’t want to come home with me?” Ian says, almost softly. “I have more of the good stuff there.”

Ben moves closer. “Klaus,” he says quietly. “Come on. We have to go.”

Klaus stays still for a few seconds, and for one long, long moment Ben thinks he won’t listen.

Then he sighs, and shakes his head at Ian. “Sorry,” he says regretfully.

Ian presses his lips together, but he nods. “Alright,” he says, a hint of coolness in his tone. “Change your mind, though, you know where to find me.”

“Sure do,” Klaus murmurs, then stumbles as Ian steps away.

“Bye, Klaus,” Ian says, and goes off to his car without a backwards glance.

Klaus and Ben watch him drive off. Then Klaus shakes his head and glances at Ben. He’s still higher than Mount Everest, but for Klaus that’s hardly even notable.

“So,” Klaus says brightly. “Where shall we go today, brother o’ mine?”

“Don’t know,” Ben shrugs, then risks saying, “But probably a diner. You need food.”

Klaus wrinkles his nose, before sighing. _“Fine.”_

Ben relaxes at the easy acceptance. Maybe today will be a good day.

They walk for a few blocks, trying to remember the nearest place. Klaus is insistent there’s a place that does all-day waffles in this general area, but Ben remembers nothing of the sort and Klaus’ memory is generally pretty unreliable when it comes to _legal_ substances.

“Ben!” Klaus gasps. “How dare you impugn me! I will _always_ remember waffles!”

“You know what ‘impugn’ means?” Ben says, confused.

“ _Waffles,_ Ben!”

“Fine, fine,” Ben says, more out of the suspicion that Klaus will abandon the idea of eating entirely if he encounters too much opposition. “We can look for the waffle place.”

“Excellent,” Klaus grins. “You can never go wrong with - hey, what?”

“Hm?” Ben says. Klaus has stopped walking; he does too.

“Am I hallucinating again or is that….” Klaus trails off.

Ben looks at where his brother is pointing. It’s a small store, with balloons hung outside and an almost obnoxiously cheerful ‘Welcome!’ sign on the propped-open door. The window shows an artful arrangement of shelves and a few stuffed animals, all centered around dozens and dozens of books displayed for people to see -

\- and on one of the covers, staring them right in the eye, is their sister’s thirteen-year-old face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: prostitution, dubcon, predatory/manipulative behavior.


	8. Chapter 8

It’s an autobiography.

It’s _Vanya’s_ autobiography.

It’s an autobiography of their sister’s childhood, from when she was a toddler to when she left home. It covers the leadup to the Academy’s debut and after, and tells her perspective of being the only normal child in a house of superheroes.

It tells the world _exactly_ what she thinks of her family, and Ben never, ever expected so much vitriol from quiet, hesitant little Vanya.

Then again, he reflects, he knows very well the curse of repressing and repressing and _repressing_ until it all spills out, attacking everything in reach.

And despite their current distance, the Hargreeves have always been just close enough to hurt each other.

“Klaus,” Ben says, shifting to get a better look at Klaus’ face. His brother is staring, unnervingly blank-faced, at the pages in front of him.

They’re in an empty alleyway. It’s moderately clean, for this part of town, and there’s even a broken milk crate Klaus can use as a stool. Ben thinks they may have to come back here when Klaus can’t get a place for the night, because as far as he can tell there’s nothing that would make it a terrible idea to sleep here. Thought the fact that it hasn’t already been claimed is a bit suspect. Maybe the previous squatter died recently?

But right now Ben needs to focus on Klaus. His brother hasn’t said a word since a few chapters into the book, and now he’s nearly two-thirds of the way done. He’s stopped turning pages, and Ben, unfortunately, has a very good idea why.

“Klaus,” Ben repeats. He waves a hand in front of Klaus’ face. It doesn’t do anything, which….well, at least he’s probably not reading anymore?

Ben glances at the pages again, and doesn’t bother to suppress a wince. It’s open to a very specific event that Ben has no trouble remembering, even though he’d really like to forget.

Klaus doesn’t remember much about Ben’s funeral, and after a few initial probing queries he hasn’t ever shown any interest in regaining those memories. Honestly, Ben would really prefer he never remembered it. It was the low point for….most of the family, really, but especially Klaus.

With the benefit of hindsight, Ben can now realize that Klaus was dealing with a _lot_ on that day. He was high, like always, but he was also utterly convinced that Ben would slip into the feral madness of the other ghosts, and was filled with frantic terror whenthe drugs didn’t drive him away. Plus, while Ben is pretty sure grief doesn’t work the same way for Klaus as everyone else, he’s confident enough in his family’s affection for him to realize that Klaus was experiencing at least _some._

So his behavior at the funeral was….not particularly decorous.

And their siblings were not appreciative of that. To say the least.

It seems Vanya agrees, and she wastes no words when spelling out just how disrespectful Klaus was. Ben wonders if it still counts as disrespectful if _he_ doesn’t really consider it so, because frankly Klaus was so out of it it seems kind of ridiculous to hold him responsible for anything he did that day. The difference is probably academic, though.

Especially since Vanya seems determined to portray Klaus as a selfish insensitive asshole junkie. Which, well, he _can_ be, sometimes. But Ben can’t help but wince when she rants that Klaus couldn’t bother to get sober for a _single day,_ not even to recognize his brother’s _death._

If he could, Ben would tell her _exactly_ how Klaus getting sober for a single day would play out. It’d probably end with another sibling dead.

Ben sighs, and looks back at Klaus. He hasn’t moved.

Right. First order of business, make sure Klaus doesn’t read the rest of the book. Ben isn’t sure he’ll be able to succeed at that, but who knows, maybe he’ll get lucky. Second order of business….chances of getting Klaus to eat after this are slim, but it’s been two days already and if he’s going to overdose tonight (very likely) he should have at least _some_ food in him.

“Klaus,” Ben repeats.

After a few seconds, Klaus looks at him. He blinks slowly.

“Hey,” Ben says quietly.

“....Hey,” Klaus says back. His voice is uncharacteristically subdued.

Ben wants to glance at the book again, but doesn’t. _His_ portrayal is kind of absurdly rose-colored. Ben is quite aware of his status as the ‘nice’ brother, but seriously, he has a bodycount higher than everyone else put together. He’s no saint.

He opens his mouth to speak again, but Klaus beats him to it.

“Didn’t expect them to thank me,” Klaus says, sending a fleeting look at the pages, as if they’ll attack if they notice his attention. “I didn’t. They - it’s not like they _know._ ”

It takes a second for Ben to realize what he’s talking about. “That you take drugs because of the risk of possession? Yeah, that was - unexpected. You’re good at hiding it, they wouldn’t have figured it out any more than I did.”

“Right,” Klaus says. “So it’s - I know they don’t like it, or me, and that’s - okay. It’s better than _telling_ them.”

Ben kind of disagrees with that sentiment, but he can understand the logic when there’s _any_ chance at all of Dad finding out. Klaus still gets uncomfortable when he’s reminded that _Ben_ knows about it, and Ben can literally only ever communicate with one person ever.

“I like you,” is what he ends up saying instead.

“No you don’t,” Klaus says, like he’s commenting on the weather.

Ben makes a face. “Well, I don’t hate you.”

“Yaay,” Klaus says dully, and sighs. He shuffles his legs until they’re tucked under his chin, gently setting down the book on the ground. The milk crate creaks ominously, but holds his weight. Perched there, he looks a little bit like a bird, if that bird were only barely decently clothed and looked like it had just seen its eggs all smashed in front of it.

“Didn’t expect them to thank me,” Klaus mutters, almost too low to hear. “Just ho-thought maybe they’d understand it’s ‘cause of my powers. Not just because I want to.”

Ben sighs. “Look,” he says. “So Vanya wrote a burn book. I don’t think it’s going to impact us much. Let’s just - go get something to eat.”

Klaus presses his lips together, and - ah, fuck, Ben knows that face.

“You know,” Klaus says, suddenly scrambling off the crate with a bounce in his step. “You’re right, I could really do with a little pick-me-up.”

“I wasn’t talking about drugs,” Ben says, but Klaus ignores him. Scooping up the book, Klaus chucks it in the dumpster with a grin.

“Where oh _where_ shall we go,” Klaus muses, skipping out of the alleyway. Ben closes his eyes briefly, before following him. “Mick is open today, I know that, but I’m thinking something a little stronger. There’s always Sam - ooo, or maybe Terry -”

“Not Terry,” Ben says.

“Terry it is!” Klaus says brightly.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. There’s that stubborn streak of his resurfacing. It comes up whenever Klaus is feeling upset or angry with Ben, and consequently ignores all of his advice.

“You don’t have enough money for Terry,” Ben points out, rather than argue that Terry is a freaking psychopath.

“Pff, then I’ll get more. Duh,” Klaus says, strolling along the sidewalk and winking at the people who give a wide berth to the homeless addict talking to himself.

Ben rubs the bridge of his nose, and prays for patience to deal with his brother’s goddamned bullshit. It’s never really worked, but he’s desperate enough to try anything after eight years.

They don’t talk as Klaus makes his way back to his usual stomping grounds. That’s fine with Ben, since he can spend the time rethinking everything he knows about Vanya.

To be perfectly frank - they were all jealous of Vanya, to varying degrees. She was never subject to torturous individual training, never had to learn how to snap a grown man’s neck after gouging out his eyes, never had to dodge around people shooting to kill. She could be an actual _child_ instead of a soldier.

Apparently, though, she didn’t see it that way.

Ben already has some experience recontextualizing a sibling’s lifelong behavior, so he isn’t as off-guard as he could be. But it’s still startling - shocking, even - to see Vanya openly stating that she wanted powers more than anything on Earth. That she used to stay awake at night praying she’d discover some secret hidden power, join in on her siblings’ training, get the attention she was always denied.

It’s true that she was ignored. Ben feels uncomfortable now, knowing how much it bothered her. She didn’t deserve that, he’ll readily admit.

But he thinks she missed the part where powers ruined no fewer than half her siblings’ lives.

Five is - gone. Ben is dead. Klaus is functionally dead. And all of that is _directly_ thanks to their powers. If Ben were given the choice to be rid of the Horror, at _any_ time in his life, he would have jumped on it in a heartbeat. Klaus is so afraid of his powers he’s built his entire life around dulling them into uselessness, and Ben is fairly certain if _he_ didn’t stick around Klaus wouldn’t bother either.

Five….Ben isn’t sure how his brother feels about his powers. He certainly didn’t hate them as much as Ben or Klaus. But Five, for all his prickliness and arrogance, loved his family. He wasn’t obvious about it - in fact, he usually went out of his way to hide it - but he did. The fact that his powers separated him from them….Ben can’t imagine Five being even close to happy about that.

Ben just fundamentally cannot understand someone _wanting_ powers.

They reach Klaus’ usual street, and Klaus drops into ‘working’ mode. Even half-starved and clearly strung-out, he’s still beautiful. In fact, his eyes are even larger like this, huge and green and mesmerizing, and his cheekbones are sharp enough to cut glass. He attracts more attention than most of his fellows working this street. They don’t really like him for that.

Ben is really fucking tired of people commenting how starvation seems to suit his brother.

Nevertheless, Klaus goes along with it cheerfully, and a few customers go by in the next couple hours. One of them is a regular who utterly, absolutely hates his wife, so Ben keeps away from that one both so he doesn’t see things he’d rather not and because they guy just _won’t shut up._ Klaus doesn’t like him any better, but the guy pays well and doesn’t ask for anything kinky, so it’s not like they can tell him to fuck off.

Once the guy drives away, Klaus giving a finger-wave that probably is neither seen nor appreciated, Klaus turns to Ben.

“Got enough for Terry now,” Klaus says, grinning and brandishing the twenty, before tucking it away in that mysterious other dimension he seems to be able to access. He’s certainly not putting it in his pockets, because those pants are practically painted on.

Ben sighs. “Klaus.”

“Ben,” Klaus mimics.

“Terry is a psychopath who threatened to cut out your tongue,” Ben says patiently. Or, well, not all that patiently, but at least he isn’t yelling. That’s the important thing.

“That was a joke! He was joking!” Klaus spins around, nearly falls over, and blinks up at the sky. It’s late afternoon, the sunlight streaming through the light cloud cover. It’s not quite that cold out yet, but their birthday was a few weeks ago and the weather will probably take a turn for the worst soon.

“I _really_ don’t think he was joking,” Ben says.

“Which is because you don’t have a sense of humor,” Klaus declares. “Terry loves me! And besides, I can outrun him.”

Ben grimaces, and reluctantly accepts that he’s not going to be able to talk Klaus out of this. And he does have a point about running. Terry is not in great shape.

“Fine,” Ben says. “But if I tell you to run, _you run._ Got it?”

“Ugh, _fine,_ ” Klaus says dismissively. But it’s agreement, so that’s enough for Ben. Or so he reminds himself.

“Um, excuse me?”

Both Ben and Klaus blink, and look to the side.

There’s a man standing a dozen feet away. He isn’t the kind of man who frequents this kind of street, that much is obvious at first glance. He’s wearing a button-down and slacks, and he’s holding a fancy leather case. There’s an air of awkward uncertainty around him so glaringly obvious Ben is surprised they didn’t see him coming from further away. Like, several miles away.

“I, um,” the man fiddles with the case, and can’t seem to quite look Klaus in the eye. Considering the rest of Klaus is hovering just _barely_ above the threshold for public decency, this means he can’t really look at the rest of Klaus either. “I don’t mean to - intrude. I, um, just. Are you, um….”

“Oh,” Klaus brightens. “First-timer? It’s okay, I don’t bite.” His grin grows wider. “Unless you pay extra.”

Ben snorts as the man squeaks and turns red.

“No! I - I mean, no, I don’t, um -”

“I think if you tell him your specialties he’ll faint,” Ben comments idly. Klaus doesn’t respond, but his mouth ticks up a shade higher.

The man closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths. Then he straightens up and squares his shoulders, which would be more impressive if he was a hair over five and a half feet.

“I’m a photographer,” he says, tapping the side of his case. “I, um, I’d like to take your picture. If you don’t mind.”

Both Ben and Klaus blink.

 _“Moi?”_ Klaus says, putting a hand to his chest and glancing around with a hint of confusion in his eyes.

“Yes,” the man says, and swallows. “I’m doing a, well, um, it’s a project. I’m photographing - uh, street walkers.”

“You can say whores, I won’t be offended,” Klaus says, amused. Then, ignoring the man’s spluttering, he frowns. “Why, though?”

“Huh?” the man says, thankfully coherent.

“No one’s going to want to look at pictures of prostitutes,” Klaus says, “Everyone would rather pretend we don’t exist - until they want us for the hour, of course. So why?”

Ben is a little curious about that himself.

The man swallows, and looks away. He licks his lips, and looks back at Klaus. “Personal reasons.”

Unlike all of the man’s dialogue before, this one is firm and unyielding.

Ben raises an eyebrow. So does Klaus.

“....This your first day out?” Klaus says.

“.....Yes,” the man says, suddenly deflating. “That obvious?”

“Banners in the sky could not make it moreso,” Klaus says cheerfully.

“Oh.” The man looks despondent, but suddenly he shakes himself and looks anxiously at Klaus. “But - I’ll pay you. To take your picture. How much is your, um, usual rate?”

Both Ben and Klaus blink. Again.

“Well, I won’t say no to that,” Klaus says, after recovering. He’s learned to grasp onto any money that comes his way, and for once Ben is completely behind this. “Fifteen dollars.”

“Okay, um, hold on,” the man fumbles with the case, and pulls out a conspicuously high-end camera. “I, um, I’m planning to put a caption beneath each photo. I was thinking name, usual rate, and date, but, uh, obviously if you don’t want to share your name you don’t have to, and I mean, if you don’t want me to use the photo either that’s totally fine, and -”

“What’s your name?” Klaus interrupts.

“Wha?” the man blinks. “Um. Henry.”

Ben isn’t surprised. The guy looks exactly like a Henry.

“Henry,” Klaus says, leaning back and crossing his arms, “I’d let you fuck me for fifteen dollars. I don’t give a fuck what you do with a _picture._ ”

Henry opens and closes his mouth.

“....Okay,” he says at last, quietly.

“My name is Klaus, by the way,” Klaus adds carelessly, and grins. “So, how do you want me?”

“Just- just standing there is fine,” Henry says, and lifts up the camera.

Klaus tilts his head, grin now gone. He regards Henry for a moment, before unfolding his arms and holding up his hands, palm tattoos on full display.

“This good?” Klaus asks.

Henry looks stunned for a moment, before he nods jerkily and snaps a photo. He snaps a couple more, and Ben goes to stand next to him.

“Do that thing,” Ben says.

Klaus glances at him.

“You know,” Ben shrugs. “That thing. Really look at him.”

Klaus looks briefly annoyed, but gives a minute shrug. And then, for a brief moment, he closes his eyes.

Ben can see the difference when he opens them. It’s not something physically detectable, but for a second his eyes aren’t dulled and weighed by drugs. They’re sharp and brilliant and blazing, and Ben can see him focusing _all_ his attention on Henry.

It’s incredible, being looked at by Klaus like that. Ben thinks it might be because Klaus can naturally see so much more than normal people, that when he _really_ looks at someone it’s like standing in front of the sun. It’s a little terrifying, a little exhilarating, almost breathtaking.

Klaus complains that from his end it’s just annoying trying to stare at people on command and focus when his brain isn’t very cooperative, but he really has no idea the effect it has on people.

Henry _freezes,_ and his finger hits the button more by accident than design.

Klaus blinks, and shakes his head, dropping his hands. “Mm. Okay, my money?”

“Uh,” Henry says, staring at Klaus.

Klaus frowns. “Come on, buddy. My fifteen dollars?”

“Uh. I, uh,” Henry says, still looking like he’s set off his own flash in his face.

Klaus raises his eyebrows at Ben. Ben shrugs. Klaus still refuses to believe him about the Look, it’s not his fault if his brother is confused. Although he has to admit this is on the more extreme side of reactions he usually gets.

“Henry!” Klaus says, snapping his fingers under Henry’s nose. “My money?”

“Uh,” Henry says again, then blinks. “Oh! Oh, right!”

He fumbles for his wallet, and hands over a twenty. Klaus brightens, and Ben feels his chest unconstrict a little. Tips are always good, and this for literally just standing still for a minute

“Excellent,” Klaus says, smiling. “You have a _wonderful_ day, Henry.”

Pocketing the twenty, Klaus gives a wave with his ‘goodbye’ hand, and saunters off. Henry stares dumbly after him.

Ben raises an eyebrow at him, even if Henry can’t see it.

“I swear I was straight five seconds ago,” Henry mumbles to himself, eyes still fixed on Klaus.

It’s been a long time since Ben has laughed, but this does it. He laughs - not loudly, but more than he has since he died. Even though Vanya’s book still weighs like an anchor in his mind, even though Klaus is going to see Terry, even though all of today’s hard-earned money is probably going to be spent on drugs instead of food. Even then.

It’s good to laugh, even if it might be for the last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT (5/13/20): The wonderful and lovely Anglophile_Rin made fanart of The Photograph Henry just took. It is like a punch to the gut and literally made me tear up because _aaaaaa Klaus bby aaaaaaa._ Ben has _every right_ to be worried.
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/24172255


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I suppose I _probably_ should have anticipated the general air of suspicion people greeted Henry with last chapter. To clarify: Henry is not Harold Jenkins. He is not photographing Klaus because of the book (it literally just came out that day or maybe the day before, that's not nearly enough time to track down Klaus). He is doing exactly what he says he is doing. And actually I came up with a backstory for him - his mom was a prostitute and gave him up for adoption, so he's doing this project for closure. _He has no ulterior motive, I promise._
> 
> .....Unlike someone else in this chapter. Trigger warnings like _whoa,_ full list at the end.

“Klaus, this is a _bad idea,_ ” Ben hisses.

His brother doesn’t respond, instead laughing and twirling around. The gauzy skirt he’s wearing flares out, catching the light. It’s actually very pretty for a secondhand find, and Ben absolutely supports Klaus wearing it because it makes him look a little less miserable. That is, he’d support Klaus wearing it anyplace it won’t get him beaten to death.

Like here, for example.

The men in the corner are all eyeing Klaus, and this is exactly the only situation where Ben would prefer their gazes to be full of lust. They’re all big, beefy white guys, drinking beer and playing cards. Just about the only thing missing is the cowboy hats.

Klaus is completely high out of his mind. It’s honestly a miracle he’s still capable of standing upright. His irises are all but gone, and he’s sweating much too hard for how recently he started dancing. Considering he’s eaten exactly once in the past week, Ben is pretty sure he’s going to collapse soon. Even the stimulants in his pocket can’t keep him going forever.

It’s been almost two weeks since Vanya’s book, and Klaus hasn’t slowed down once. Klaus seems to be trying to live up to her worst interpretation of him, cramming himself full of drink and drugs and - well. He barely acknowledges Ben, and Ben is honestly not sure if Klaus can see him in his current state.

It terrifies him. Ben thought he had become accustomed to helplessness, to rage and fear and hate, over the last eight years he’d been following Klaus around. But Klaus’ headfirst dive into the absolute lowest state a human being can reach has Ben thinking he’s heading straight for a grave. Maybe even on purpose.

Probably on purpose.

But Ben isn’t letting that happen without a fight. He glares at the men in the corner, who have escalated from sending Klaus dirty looks to whispering amongst themselves.

“Klaus!” Ben barks, planting himself in front of his brother. “Klaus, _look_ at me!”

Klaus blinks in his general direction, eyes artificially bright, utter incomprehension on his face. He focuses on Ben for a brief second, just enough that Ben knows he can still see him, and then Klaus laughs and shakes his head. He continues dancing, although his movements don’t match the music at all.

Two of the men get up.

_“Fuck,”_ Ben says, frantically, looking between them and his brother. “Klaus! Klaus, you idiot, get out of here!”

But just like _every time_ over the last two weeks, Klaus pays him no mind.

Ben is frantically debating the risk of shouting at Klaus - on one hand, it would certainly get his attention, but on the other, it would probably drop him into a panic attack, which is the only way this could get _worse_ \- when one of the men shoves his way forward and ends up planted in front of Klaus.

“Hey!” the man says, reaching out and grabbing at Klaus’ wrist. Ben flinches. Klaus is stick-thin now, and his wrist is skinny enough that it looks like a toothpick in the man’s hand.

Klaus stumbles to a stop, and blinks dumbly at the man. He cocks his head, and gives a clueless smile.

“Hi!” he chirps, raising his other hand in a wave. Rather misleadingly, it’s the one that says ‘goodbye.’

“What are you doing?” the man says, a note of disgust in his voice. “We don’t appreciate your type around here.”

“My type?” Klaus parrots, looking confused. “Oh, you mean drop-dead gorgeous?”

Klaus laughs at his joke. The man scowls, and Ben has just enough time to reach for him, futily, before he shakes Klaus. It’s not hard, not quite, but it’s more than Klaus can handle in his current state. Klaus stumbles and falls, and only the man’s grasp on his wrist prevents him from faceplanting on the dance floor.

“Shit,” Ben hisses. He tries to get in Klaus’ eyeline, but it’s hard, and Klaus isn’t really focusing very well. Or at all.

The man spits out a slur Klaus and Ben have grown very used to hearing, and then a few more. He hauls Klaus up to his feet, and shoves him off the dance floor up against a wall. The other man is there as well, eyes dark and disgusted.

“I think you need to learn a lesson or two,” the first man spits, leaning in.

Klaus grins, sharp and wild and feral, and oh, oh, Ben knows that look.

“A threesome, darling?” Klaus says, glancing between the two men. “Well, just for you, since you asked so nicely.”

Honestly, it’s not even a surprise when Klaus’ head is slammed into the wall.

Klaus yelps, and Ben is pretty sure it’s more out of surprise than pain. He’s too high to feel much of anything. The fact that he won’t really notice being beaten to death is cold comfort, however, and Ben clutches at his hair and lets out a strangled sound.

The men close in, murder in their eyes, and Klaus is shaking his head and he’s still _completely_ out of it and Ben is useless as ever except this time he really is going to watch his brother die and the Horror is _raging_ and -

“Hey! Hey, let go of him!”

And the world freezes as _Ian_ appears from nowhere and shoves himself between Klaus and the two men.

Everyone blinks.

“What,” Ben says blankly.

“Huh?” Klaus says.

The men recover a bit quicker, and the lead one scowls at Ian. “Fuck off,” he grunts.

“My brother’s a police officer,” Ian says, holding up his hands. He glances back at Klaus. “I just got off the phone with him. Now, I can go call him back, and tell him to not bother sending a cruiser by here, but that’s going to require you to _back off._ ”

The men glare at him, and the tension suddenly increases tenfold.

Klaus blinks dumbly at Ian’s back, and Ben is fairly certain he hasn’t recognized Ian yet. Ben squeezes himself in front of Klaus. “Hey,” he says, low and urgent. “Klaus, just be quiet, okay? Just don’t talk.”

“Your choice, gentlemen,” Ian says, with that too-slick grin of his.

The silence stretches out for another long minute.

Then the lead man scowls and spits at Klaus. It doesn’t hit him, which is the only reason Ben doesn’t find a way to manifest and rip him apart.

“Fuckin’ fairy’s not worth it,” the man mutters, and he and his compatriot walk away, casting sullen glares back over their shoulders.

Ian waits until the men are back at their table before he turns and smiles at Klaus. “Hey there,” he says genially, as if they’d just met out on the street. “Don’t you just get into all _sorts_ of trouble.”

Klaus blinks at him, and then his eyes lighten fractionally. “Ian?”

“Come on,” Ian says easily, taking Klaus’ arm. “Let’s get you out of here. Beautiful skirt, by the way.”

“Really?” Klaus says, stunned. He sways as Ian leads him away, and gains a small, pleased smile. “Thanks.”

“Fuck,” Ben says, staring. He realizes they’re getting further away, and rushes after them. “Klaus? Klaus, fuck, you need to get away. Just thank him and leave, come on. We need to go.”

Klaus frowns at him, but gets distracted when Ian reaches up and cups his chin. They’re outside now, the chilly night air making Klaus shiver. Well, he’s usually trembling all the time nowadays, but right now his teeth chatter in the cold.

“What are you doing at a place like this, Klaus?” Ian says. “I was looking for you. Wanted another night. More, if you’ll let me.”

“No,” Ben says, crowding in to try and get Klaus to focus on him. “No, Klaus, tell him no.” Ian usually respects Klaus’ nos. Grudgingly, barely, but he does.

“Mmmm,” Klaus says vaguely, leaning into Ian’s touch.

“Is that a yes?” Ian says, raising an eyebrow.

Ben feels panic clawing inside his throat. His instincts are _screaming_ at him, the look on Ian’s face anything but reassuring. He doesn’t know how, but he _knows_ that if Klaus goes with Ian tonight, it’s going to be bad. Very, very bad.

“Don’t,” Ben says sharply, willing his voice to pierce through the fog around his brother’s mind. “Klaus, _say no._ We’ll find someplace else. _Tell him no, Klaus._ ”

Klaus blinks, and for a moment his eyes clear. He looks at Ben, and -

A look of anger, of stubbornness, flashes through his eyes.

Ben’s breath catches in his throat. No, no, he pushed too hard, he forgot how Klaus has been acting these past couple weeks, and now Klaus is looking at Ian and _smiling_ and -

“Sure,” Klaus says cheerfully. “Sure, of course.”

Ian _grins._

“My place?” he asks lightly, eyes dark and hungry.

“Where else?” Klaus says, grinning back.

And Ben can only watch as Ian herds his brother away to his car, wearing that smugly victorious smile and looking like all his dreams have finally, finally come true.

**********

Ian lives in a modest two-bedroom apartment. There isn’t much personal decoration, besides a few band posters and shelves of comic books. He really does have a brother, although the man is certainly not represented by the few pictures on the mantel. The apartment is neat and well-kept - a sharp contrast to the rest of the building, which is in notable disrepair. The rent is dirt-cheap, at least, which means Ian can easily afford to live there alone on a part-time salary.

Despite Ben not wanting to know any of this, he eventually learns it, because Klaus doesn’t leave.

It’s genuinely ambiguous if he _could,_ because Ben has no doubt that this is exactly what Ian has wanted for a very long time. But Klaus doesn’t even try. Ian puts him in the extra bedroom, and after a little coaxing Klaus readily divulges his drug stashes hidden around the city. Ian doesn’t even have to spend much money to keep Klaus high 24/7, which is all Klaus has ever really wanted in life.

Yes, Ben knows he has his reasons for that. But he’s choosing to ignore that, because the swirling cocktail of horror and fear and disgust keeps stealing his breath away, filling his lungs and choking him.

Ian has sex with Klaus whenever he feels like it. Usually every day, although those encounters are hardly drawn-out. What he _really_ likes is every couple days, when he injects Klaus with enough drugs to turn him into a limp, barely-conscious puddle, and if Klaus’ nonchalance is anything to go by this is what he _usually_ does when he buys Klaus for the night.

Klaus has taken to ignoring Ben. It’s infuriating and terrifying and it makes Ben want to screamscream _scream_ every time Ian looks at his brother like he’s nothing more than an object and Klaus _doesn’t care._ He doesn’t care that he’s basically a _pet,_ kept complacent with his own drugs and unable to refuse any of Ian’s advances. He doesn’t care that Ian likely won’t ever let him leave, that Ben tells - begs, really - him to escape every day, that this isn’t living at all, just a waking death.

“Hey there,” Ian says, swanning into the room without knocking. Ben snarls at him impotently.

“Hiii~” Klaus says, grinning at him from the bed. He’s only normal amounts of high right now, and the rest of his good mood is due to being warm and fed for the first time in years. The stuff Ian feeds him isn’t high-quality, but over the past month it’s managed to put a couple pounds back on him.

Ben decides to be petty and not give Ian any points for that.

“Guess what I have,” Ian says, and Ben’s heart sinks.

“Ooo!” Klaus says, perking up. “Good stuff?”

“The best,” Ian confirms, hoisting up the bag. He takes a seat on the edge of the bed and tugs Klaus’ arm towards himself.

Sure enough, it’s heroin. Klaus’ eyes gleam as the drug is revealed, and Ian looks at him with an expression some (delusional) people might describe as ‘fond.’

Ben turns to the wall and punches it. His fist goes right through it, of course, leaving no mark. He pretends it’s Ian’s face, and the reason there’s no resistance is that he temporarily gained Luther’s power and obliterated the man’s skull with ease.

“This is the third time this week,” Klaus says.

“Well, you’ve been good,” Ian says in a reasonable tone, as if drugging and raping someone is a fucking _reward._ Ben looks back at them just in time to wish he didn’t, as Ian puts his hand on Klaus’ cheek in a parody of gentleness.

Klaus flutters his eyes closed and leans into it. It _hurts_ to see that, maybe almost as much as the sex, because while Ben’s never really managed to figure out if Klaus is affected by the sex it’s _incredibly_ obvious he’s affected by this. Klaus is so damn touch-starved Ben has always half suspected he took up prostitution in part because it gets people to touch him. And this - this could be mistaken for kindness. Caring, even.

“It’s not real, Klaus,” Ben says quietly, coming over to stand by the bed. He looks at his brother and suddenly feels much, much older than his eternally-seventeen years. “It’s not real.”

Ben knows Klaus hears him, because there’s the most minute twitch on his face that Ian probably can’t detect. But like every time over the past month, Klaus ignores him.

Instead, he opens his eyes and blinks at Ian. “I don’t think I have much more heroin stored up, though,” he says hesitantly, glancing at the drug.

“Then I’ll get more,” Ian says, shrugging. He removes his hand from Klaus’ face and begins preparing the drug with quick, practiced motions.

“Oh,” Klaus says, eyes wide, and he looks at Ian like he hung the damn moon. “Okay. It’s kind of expensive, though.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about that,” Ian says with a laugh.

“Okay,” Klaus repeats, his eyes now fixed on the needle. He picks it up and fiddles with it as Ian ties the tourniquet around his other arm.

Ben leans back against the wall and closes his eyes. He’s going to leave in a minute or two, once the drug kicks in. Although of course even if he stayed nothing would go differently. Ben has felt this creeping edge of helpless rage ever since he’s died, but for the first time he really _understands_ why every other ghost goes insane. The knowledge that Klaus can see him, hear him, and yet keeps _willfully ignoring him_ when Ben just wants to fucking _communicate_ with someone -

“Hey,” Klaus says, breaking through Ben’s thoughts. “Is this the same needle from last time?”

Ben glances at Klaus. His brother is frowning at the needle in his hand, holding it rather inadvisably close to his face.

“Mm? Yeah, think so,” Ian says, tightening the tourniquet. He taps Klaus’ elbow, and reaches for the needle.

Only for Klaus to hold it out of reach.

Both Ben and Ian blink.

Klaus is _frowning_ at Ian. That’s - new.

“You shouldn’t reuse needles, Ian,” Klaus says - chides, really. He sets it down on the tiny nightstand. “Never reuse needles. We need a new one.”

Ben blinks again. So does Ian.

“What,” Ian says, and he’s too surprised to even turn it into a question. Then he shakes his head. “Klaus, it’s fine. It’s not going to hurt you.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Klaus says, sticking out his lower lip in a pout. “But we need a new needle. _Never reuse needles._ ”

And yeah, Ben knows Klaus is meticulous about that. It’s a pretty strange standard, considering he gladly sleeps in dumpsters and takes drugs cut with cleaning supplies and has on more than one occasion eaten something off the floor. But there’s a reason needles are his least-used method of delivery, and that’s because he flat-out refuses to reuse or share them. Ben’s never really thought about it too much - don’t look the gift horse in the mouth, and all that. But if Klaus is willing to defy Ian over it, it must be more important to him than Ben thought.

“Klaus,” Ian sounds a bit exasperated now. “It’s not like I stole it from an AIDS patient. I literally used it on you two nights ago. It’s fine.”

“No,” Klaus shakes his head, crossing his arms mullishly. “It’s _not._ We need a new one.”

“Klaus,” Ian says warningly, reaching out to grab Klaus’ arm.

Ben eyes him, and looks at Klaus. He’s not all that fond of reusing needles either, but there’s a glint in Ian’s eyes that raises Ben’s hackles. This is the first time Klaus has refused him anything since coming to live with him, and while that raping bastard deserves to be taken down a peg (or twelve), Ben isn’t so sure this should be the hill on which Klaus makes his stand.

He opens his mouth, but Klaus beats him to it.

“No!” Klaus says, pulling himself out of Ian’s grip. He glares - actually _glares_ \- at Ian. “Never reuse needles, Ian! _Never._ ”

Ben is staring, open-mouthed, at Klaus. This is - well, he can’t say he was expecting this. But, he thinks, straightening upright, maybe he can use this. If he can convince Klaus that Ian is no good, maybe Klaus will start trying to escape, and it would sure be a lot easier if their relationship is on the rocks. Klaus is an expert escape artist, after all, and -

Ian’s hand blurs out, almost too quickly to follow, and seizes Klaus by the hair. Klaus yelps in surprise as he’s yanked up against Ian, overbalancing on the bed and ending up sprawled halfway across Ian’s lap. Ian’s other hand presses down on Klaus’ chest, keeping him pinned.

“I will _do_ what I _want,_ Klaus,” Ian says, in a terrifyingly level voice.

He’s looking down at Klaus like he’s dirt under his shoe, or maybe a particularly ugly cockroach. Klaus goes still at the look, frozen wide-eyed and silent, and Ben feels his own muscles lock up as well.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck._ Ian’s been indulgent so far, not slipping into the worser depravities some of Klaus’ customers have done over the years, but he’s always liked control, and Ben should have guessed defiance would press his buttons.

Klaus might not be breathing. Ben thinks frantically about what to do. If he can coach Klaus into saying an apology, would that be enough? Ian’s obviously still going to hurt him either way, but an apology might mitigate it somewhat….

And then Ian smiles.

“But I’m feeling nice tonight,” he says. “So how about we compromise? How’s this: we use this needle tonight, but I _promise_ not to reuse any future needles. Is that alright?”

Klaus blinks up at him, and looks uncertain. “I….”

“You don’t want this lovely heroin to go to waste, do you?” Ian says lightly, removing his hand from Klaus’ chest to pick up the needle. He keeps his other hand in Klaus’ hair, fractionally tightening his grip. Klaus barely winces, of course; he’s had much, much worse. But he does swallow, eyes fixed on the needle.

Ben swallows as well.

“....Okay,” Klaus says quietly. “Sorry.”

“You’re forgiven,” Ian says, but Ben sees the lie in his eyes. Klaus will be punished for this, he realizes with a sinking heart. And knowing Ian, it won’t just be tonight. Ian is a very _thorough_ man, and apparently more of a control freak than they’d realized.

This isn’t going to be pretty.

**********

“Klaus,” Ian says, leaning down and giving Klaus a honey-sweet smile. Klaus blinks up at him, but Ben’s attention is mostly on the man in the doorway. A month staying here, and Ian has never brought anyone else around.

“Mm?” Klaus says, confused. He rubs his eyes, and looks between Ian and the newcomer.

“Klaus,” Ian says, “This is Grant. I need you to do something for me. I’ll give you the good stuff tonight if you do.”

“Really?” Klaus says, brightening.

“Klaus….” Ben says slowly, the Horror starting to churn inside his stomach.

“You’re getting a bit expensive,” Ian says with a wink. “So you need to start bringing in an income. Nothing you haven’t done before. Grant here is your first customer. Understand?”

Klaus blinks. Once. Twice.

“Oh,” he says. “Okay.”

“Excellent,” Ian says, pleased. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” He walks out the door without a backwards glance, stopping briefly to murmur something to Grant. The man nods, his eyes never leaving Klaus. A smirk tugs at his lips.

Ben’s head is full of buzzing. Everything is moving as if it’s in slow motion. He needs - he needs it all to stop. Just stop, just for one minute. But Grant is walking over to Klaus and his brother is looking anywhere but at Ben and the door closes and - and -

Ben runs.

He runs out of the apartment and away from the building and down the street and across the road and past the buildings so fast they blur by and he keeps running and running and running and he doesn’t have to breathe and yet his chest is closing up and the Horror is swelling in rage and he can’t breathe and he’s falling on the ground and holding his head and -

And Ben _screams._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: heavy drug use, starvation, homophobic/derogatory language, violence and threatened violence, manipulative/predatory behavior, domestic abuse, heavily dubious consent, drugged sex, controlling/abusive behavior, forced prostitution.
> 
> Okay, the story is now entering into territory that a _lot_ of people will probably be uncomfortable with, to the point where I feel the need to say that _yes,_ this story will have a happy ending. It is entirely understandable if you want to stop reading anyways, and I've crafted this series so that you can in fact skip over this story and go straight on to the next one when I start posting that. Entirely up to you.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all very much for your support, I will try to make up for all the pain I am causing you (and our bois).
> 
> Trigger warnings at end.

Ben likes this park.

It’s not very large. About a block in total. The water in the fountain started flowing again about a month ago, freed from the freezing cold of winter. There are blooming flowers around. Families and couples walk by. It’s a nice place.

He likes this particular bench, set right under one of the few trees around, casting him in shade. A little redundant, since he _is_ a shade. But nevertheless.

Hardly anyone wants to sit on this bench. Probably because one of the slats is broken. It doesn’t prove an impediment to him, however, which means he always has it to himself.

That’s nice.

Ben leans back. The sun is high in the sky. He wonders if he should head back to -

No. Not yet. He can’t go back just yet.

A kid races by on a bike. Ben wonders what riding a bike is even like. It always looked so precarious, balancing like that.

The sky is a beautiful cerulean blue, unmarred by clouds or aircraft. Ben always liked days like this. When he was alive, it felt so peaceful, air warm and inviting, ground covered in new growth. He liked to sit in the courtyard with a book, and sometimes Five or Vanya joined him. Those are carefully-kept memories, and days like this make him remember why he loved such weather when he was alive.

And after his death, he liked days like this simply because Klaus didn’t run the risk of dying in an alleyway. Or. Well. Not an _increased_ risk, anyways.

Ben stares, blankly, at the beautiful blue sky.

It’s been five months.

Five months since Ian started bringing back _customers_ for Klaus, and six months since Klaus stepped over the threshold of that apartment. Six months since being outside, as well. Ian won’t hear of him leaving the apartment - he barely leaves the room.

All of Klaus’ drug stashes are used up, and Ben isn’t nearly naive enough to think that wasn’t Ian’s intention. Klaus is terrified of leaving, now that his safety net has been lost. All his drugs come through Ian now, and he seems resigned to this state of affairs.

He talks to Ben sometimes, although that’s more out of boredom from staring at the same four walls every day than any real desire to, Ben knows. They keep circling back to the same argument about running - although is it an argument when Klaus flatly refuses to even entertain the idea? As far as he’s concerned, there’s no strong reason to go and every reason to stay.

_“You cannot be serious,” Ben says flatly._

_Klaus shoots him a glare with more venom than Ben can ever remember seeing directed at him. “I **am,** ” Klaus insists irritably. “What’s wrong with staying? I have food, and a goddamned bed for once!”_

_Ben genuinely cannot believe his ears. “He’s selling you, Klaus!”_

_“Oh, yes, **that’s** new.”_

_“You were in control before,” Ben snaps. “You could say no to bad customers, and you set your own prices. I didn’t like it but -”_

_“And it always comes down to that, right?” Klaus says heatedly. “What **you** like, what **you** want. You never wanted me to do drugs even though you **know** I have to.”_

_“Stop pretending it’s some great sacrifice!” Ben snarls. “Yeah, it stops you from being possessed, but you **want** drugs! You’re an **addict,** Klaus! You could learn to control your powers instead of living like this, but instead you take the easy way out and let **them** control **you!** You keep hiding behind possession, and it’s getting real fucking old. If you really didn’t want to be anyone’s slave, you **never would have come here.** ”_

_There’s a horribly broken look in Klaus’ eyes, but he still grins with all his teeth. “Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we, **Ben.** ” _

_Ben clenches his jaw so hard he feels the nonexistent bones grind together. “Yeah,” he spits out. “Guess it was too much to hope for that you’d actually grow up.”_

_He whirls around and stalks away through the wall, ignoring Klaus’ semi-hysterical laughter echoing after him._

Ben continues staring at the sky.

Further arguments always followed in much the same vein since. Ben isn’t all that sure he has it in him to try again.

The kid on the bike circles around again. Ben eyes her tiredly. She looks carefree, happy even. Ben only has a few memories of his siblings ever wearing that expression, and he’s not entirely sure he’s _ever_ seen it on Klaus. Maybe when they were very, very young, before Klaus found out he could be possessed and the ghosts weren’t too demanding and Dad hadn’t yet labeled him the resident failure. Maybe there was a time before all those things, and Klaus was able to smile like that.

Ben kind of doubts it, though.

The sky is still cloudless, although for some reason it seems duller than before. Ben doesn’t bother examining why.

Staying here is still better than going back there, though, so Ben doesn’t move. He can’t really think of anything to occupy his mind, so he just ends up people-watching. It’s nice. He can almost pretend he’s alive, that he’s sitting here visible to everyone and they’re not looking at him simply because he’s not all that remarkable. Just another teenager at the park - maybe looking a little weird off by himself in a dark hoodie, but nothing to get concerned about.

Just a normal, living teenager out for a day in the park, with a family and a home and zero brothers being tortured by psychopathic rapists.

The Horror shifts inside his stomach, and Ben grimaces. It’s been perpetually restless, these past few months. Ben knows better than to believe it’s actually feeling _protective_ of Klaus, but Ben’s endless well of seething rage is more than enough to sharpen its interest. It wants to kill, and it doesn’t care _why._

Not for the first time, Ben would be entirely willing to accommodate it. He wants Ian to _die,_ wants to rip him apart in a spray of blood and gore he always hated so much as a child. Back then, he couldn’t fathom _wanting_ to release the Horror on someone, only did so when pressured or if it was the only way to help his siblings. He thought there were no circumstances where he could possibly _relish_ the idea, and if _that_ ever happened he’d be as much of a monster as the Horror.

Ben’s met a few more monsters since then, though. He’s a long way down on the list.

The light slowly grows dimmer over the next couple hours. When the sun is halfway over the horizon, Ben sighs and gets up.

If he’s remembering correctly, Chloe is coming tonight, and then Kyle. It’s a bad combination. Chloe never fails to get violent, because apparently Klaus vaguely resembles her asshole ex or what-the-fuck-ever. Klaus has gotten better at not having panic attacks when she hurls verbal and physical abuse at him, but Ben prefers to be on hand nevertheless. Kyle, on the other hand, is really into roleplaying as a normal happy couple, like Klaus isn’t a drug-addicted sex slave locked in Ian’s spare room and Kyle isn’t a delusional amoral creep. Klaus doesn’t actually get physically hurt with Kyle, but it fucks up his head pretty bad. Even moreso when preceded by Chloe.

Trudging back to the apartment, Ben runs a hand over his face. Ghosts can’t actually get tired, so he’s probably imagining the soul-deep feeling of fatigue sapping at him. He pushes it away, and starts planning out how he’s going to handle tonight.

It’s all he _can_ do.

**********

“Do you remember when we used to sneak out to Griddy’s?” Ben says.

Klaus doesn’t move from where he’s lying on the bed. He’s pulled up the blankets so far over himself only a sliver of his nose is visible, and is still enough that most people would probably think he’s asleep. It’s certainly late enough, moon shining in through the small window and streets silent outside.

Ben knows better, though. Kyle’s little games never leave Klaus capable of sleeping. He’s only _technically_ better than Chloe, who asked Ian tonight how much it would cost to rip out Klaus’ tongue ‘just to get him to shut up for once.’ She claimed she was joking, but, well….

Ben stops thinking about it. It didn’t happen, and it won’t do any good to dwell. 

“We thought we were so clever,” Ben says. “Avoiding the cameras, using casual clothes, stealing those little knick-knacks Dad never cared about and selling them for donut money. I’m still surprised Luther went along with that, honestly.”

He stares out the window. It only really shows the roof of the building next door and a patch of sky, and Ben doesn’t know how to feel about that. He always felt a little angry at Dad for letting their windows show the world they were locked away from. It was just cruel. But this seems worse, in a way, because with a view like this Ben can all too easily see why Klaus would start to forget there even _is_ a world outside these four walls.

Especially when it’s not that great of a world anyways.

“I’m pretty sure Pogo knew,” Ben remarks. “We were overconfident once Five figured out how to spoof the door monitors. Dad’s a paranoid old bastard, there were obviously cameras we didn’t know about. But Pogo was in charge of the night footage. He must have seen us, but he never told.”

Klaus still doesn’t move. His breaths are slow and even - but deliberately so. He’s suppressing any reaction he might have. He’s grown very, very good at that, but Ben has learned to read Klaus these past eight and a half years. Not perfectly, but he unquestionably knows Klaus better than anyone else.

It’s an unpleasant realization, because Klaus prefers to let everyone - even their siblings - believe that they know everything they need about him. Carefree and cheerful and completely oblivious to everyone and everything negative in the world, that’s Klaus. The sheer _depth_ of the deception is what fools everyone, because who expects Klaus of all people to be hiding things?

Even Ben fell into that trap, and he got years of firsthand experience at the kind of life Klaus lives. He never suspected, not _once,_ that Klaus has….not _good_ reasons for living the way he does, but logical ones. Ben still doesn’t agree with _how_ Klaus is protecting their remaining siblings, or how he’s clearly much too attached to his addictions to even consider another way, but the fact remains that it _is_ rooted in the desire to protect them. That still stuns him, sometimes.

After all, they never really returned the favor.

He thinks again about going to Griddy’s. The silent thrill of disobeying, the sheer _rush_ of being outside the Academy unsupervised, the sticky-sweet taste of donuts on his tongue. Their only true freedom.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t come with us,” Ben says quietly.

Klaus doesn’t respond, but his shoulders do tighten fractionally.

Ben remembers the family meeting they’d had when they were nine, where Five proudly proclaimed he could fix the door monitors so they wouldn’t trip, and they could all go out and do something _fun_ for once. Even Vanya had lit up, tiny smile spreading across her face, and Ben suspected Five worked as hard as he did just because of that.

_“Not all of us,” Four says. He’s not smiling._

_Everyone blinks and looks at him._

_“What?” Three asks._

_Four shuffles his feet up under his chin and looks at them with a mixture of resentment and anger. “I can’t,” he huffs, glaring. “My door is locked.”_

_“So we’ll steal the key,” Five replies impatiently._

_Everyone nods, but Four only glares harder._

_“Mom has it hidden somewhere,” he says. “You can’t get it from her. And none of you know how to pick locks.”_

_“We’ll get it, Four,” Five says in exasperation. “Honestly.”_

_Except they never did._

“Did you know?” Ben wonders aloud, glancing over at the lump that is his brother. “Back then? About being possessed, I mean. When you told us to stop trying to find the key and just go without you, did you already know?”

Finally, Klaus shifts slightly.

“....Suspected,” Klaus murmurs, too quiet to be heard in anything other than total silence. “Just a little. Not enough. I would have gone if you got the key.”

Ben nods, and looks back out the window. “When did you know?” he asks softly. "For sure, I mean?"

“....Twelve.” A sigh. “Few months after our birthday.”

Ben wracks his brains to try and remember anything notable happening a few months after they turned twelve. Nothing jumps out, except -

A jolt _races_ through him, and Ben feels his eyes widen. “The stairs? Klaus, did they -”

“No,” Klaus interrupts, and it almost sounds wry. The blankets rustle, and tighten closer around him. “No, not the stairs. That was - all me.”

“Oh,” Ben says, his nonexistent heart settling down. “Oh, okay. So - what, then?”

There’s a movement under the blankets that might be a shrug. “Nothing new. I got possessed. I just - woke up and realized this time. It wasn’t - wasn’t really a shock. I was pretty sure by then.”

Ben is pretty sure there’s more to the story than that, but he drops it. He leans back and keeps staring out the window.

“Did you like the donuts we brought back for you, at least?” Ben asks, and his voice is more uncertain than he intended it to be.

“Yeah,” Klaus sighs. “Yeah, I did.”

“Okay,” Ben whispers.

They don’t talk the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Forced prostitution, abuse (emotional/physical/mental), probably a bit of stockholm syndrome, dubious consent, learned helplessness, reference to suicide.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings at the end, per usual.

Ben stares at the gates to the Academy.

He really doesn’t know why he’s here.

The Academy is only barely within Ben’s range of movement while Klaus is at Ian’s. There’s a subtle yet insistent _tug_ in the middle of his sternum, tethering him to Klaus, urging him to step back. Ben is pretty certain he’s the only ghost with that particular connection to Klaus, and that it’s the reason Ben is still normal-looking and sane and - well, a person instead of an echo.

The tether isn’t too bad. Sure, he can’t go too far from Klaus, but Ben lucked out by having a brother capable of seeing him at all. Every other ghost on the planet didn’t get the same courtesy. They have to exist apart from everyone, dragging themselves around their loved ones or the places they died or who knows where else, mindlessly repeating their own deaths. Having his travel options be limited by Klaus’ mobility is a fucking cakewalk compared to that. And it’s not like there’s any place Ben really _wants_ to go.

Including here.

Because - yes. Luther is here. Or he should be, anyways, and Ben can’t really see that changing unless he’s briefly out on a mission. Luther is here, and Ben can see him if he’s willing to stretch that tether just a bit further. With Allison utterly inaccessible, and Diego and Vanya in places unknown (and Five is both), Ben can check in on Luther. He can make sure his brother is - well, probably not _okay,_ that might be stretching it, but at least not drugged and sold to fulfill a bunch of sickos’ fantasies on a daily basis.

But - thoroughly, childishly, selfishly - Ben does not want to go back into that house.

He hates it. He hates it so fucking much. That surprises him, a little, because Ben hates a _lot_ of things nowadays and he thought Ian and Klaus’ addictions and the people that line up to buy his brother crowded out the possibility of anything else getting onto that list. If he had to guess beforehand, the Academy might have been a footnote in explaining exactly what Ben Hargreeves hates.

But here he is, staring up at the pretentious custom stained-glass windows of his childhood house (it was never a home), and he _hates_ it.

How can Luther stand to live here? Even from outside, even _dead,_ Ben can feel the building sapping away his very soul. The Academy never gave them anything - it took and took and took until they crumpled up, hollow and empty. All broken until their sharp edges hurt each other worse than Dad ever did.

He hates this place.

Luther is probably fine, and wouldn’t even see Ben.

He should go back to - well. He should go to the park.

Ben stares at the Academy.

Then, carefully, gingerly, he walks up the steps and

goes

through

the

door.

It’s the same, of course. Same entrance hall, managing to be imposing and gloomy in full daylight. Ben shivers as he crosses the hall. He doesn’t stop to look around, because he might just walk back out the door if he does.

Making his way to the hallway where the bedrooms are, Ben pauses outside of Luther’s door. He’s grown a healthy respect for closed doors over the past eight and a half years. Not that Luther is _at all_ likely to have anyone in there with him, but there’s still a decent chance of him being in no decent state for Ben to see.

While he’s debating with himself whether he’s comfortable enough keeping the tether stretched for however-long it might be until Luther comes out of his own accord, the door swings open.

Ben’s first thought is _wow, Pogo really hit the gym._

His second thought is _why is my brother’s head on top of a gorilla body._

His third thought is mostly incoherent spluttering, followed by frozen disbelief.

Because - Luther. Luther is in front of him. Luther is standing in front of him with over-muscled arms and torso, thick wiry hair and leathery skin. He looks - well, if Pogo looks mostly chimp and kind of human, Luther looks the other way around.

Luther. He. What.

“What,” Ben says, staring.

Luther, of course, doesn’t answer. With quick movements, he pulls a shirt over his head. It doesn’t really hide how he’s now apparently built like a brick house, but it covers most of the - other stuff.

Ben has so many questions and has never been more frustrated at how he won’t get them answered.

 _“What,”_ he says anyways.

Luther sighs, and exits his room. Ben has to jump to the side to avoid getting walked through (ugh, it feels terrible), and stares at his brother’s back as it disappears down the hall.

Okay. So.

Luther is apparently part monkey now.

That - that kicks Ben’s brain back into working.

Because - there’s really only one way Luther could have gotten like that. Only one person who could have _made_ him like that. One person who studied enough, worked enough, pushed the boundaries of science enough to make a chimpanzee slightly human, and could maybe do the same thing in reverse.

Ben feels himself follow after his brother.

“Luther,” he says, and his voice is perfectly even. Huh. He knows that voice. He uses it sometimes when Klaus does something _really_ stupid, like deliberately taking drugs cut with cleaning supplies and hiding in a place the paramedics won’t find him. That tone always makes Klaus tense and miserable and scared, so Ben tries not to use it, but sometimes it just slips out. “Luther, did Dad do that to you?”

Luther reaches the workout room. It has a few changes, but it’s mostly still the same equipment Ben remembers. Luther silently starts pressing weights.

“If Dad did that to you, Luther,” Ben says, still absolutely level. “Then he was wrong to do it. Whatever the situation, whatever he told you, he was _wrong._ ”

Luther doesn’t answer. Of course. Honestly, it’s almost just like talking to Klaus.

That thought punctures Ben like a balloon, and he feels the freezing cold in his chest drain away. He sags and looks at Luther, still dutifully training away for the next mission their fucking sociopath of a father decides to send him on.

Ben can’t imagine why he thought seeing Luther would make him feel better.

"Just….forget it," Ben mutters. He runs a hand through his hair and gives Luther one last look before turning and leaving.

The tether loosens when he gets further away from the Academy, but Ben doesn't really notice. His thoughts are all jumbled together, shaken and overlapping and yet strangely distant. It's almost like the feeling he gets when he needs to vent, but not quite.

He practices breathing exercises on his way back to Ian's. They help….about as much as ever, but it's a long enough walk that he doesn't feel like he's going to be ripped apart by his own emotions. Probably.

His mood then takes a nosedive when he sees the woman standing outside Ian's apartment.

Chloe. Right. She has an appointment today - two hours, if he's remembering right. Two hours of hurtling abuse (both physical and verbal) at Klaus, for the crime of looking like a guy he's never even met. Although honestly, Klaus has joked more than once that Chloe could make any man want to switch to guys.

From the looks of it, she's fairly drunk, as well. Lovely. She stands outside the door, swaying on her feet and blinking. Ben can't tell if she's even knocked.

He goes through the wall and makes for Klaus' room. Klaus forgets half his appointments, and it's a bad idea for him to be surprised, especially if Chloe is drunk and bound to be worse than usual -

Oh.

Well. Looks like Chloe _hasn't_ knocked yet. That, or Ian hasn't heard it. Either one is possible.

Mechanically, Ben steps out into the hall to wait. He stares at the wall, hands in his pockets, and quietly runs through his favorite fantasies of murdering Ian.

Chloe starts pounding on the door a few minutes later. It takes another three for Ian to come out of Klaus' room, clothes haphazardly thrown on. He quickly neatens his appearance, although there isn't really much he can do to avoid blaring to the world he was just mid-coitus.

Ben stares blankly after him as he goes to open the door, before phasing into Klaus' room again.

It takes a few seconds for Klaus to notice him. "Ben!" Klaus says, throwing his arm out. "Hey!"

If Klaus isn't on 'the good stuff,' Ben judges, he's at least on the tail end. His pupils are dilated so large the irises are barely showing, inky black pits in the middle of his face. His skin is waxen and pale, soaked in sweat and - probably other fluids. He has several new bruises, although they don't stand out much against all the older ones. He is, of course, completely naked.

"Hey," Ben says after a moment, because - really what else _can_ he say?

Klaus hums, getting distracted by examining his hand. He traces the letters on his palm, seemingly fascinated. He doesn't seem to notice, or care, that he's naked in front of his brother.

Ben doesn't particularly like seeing Klaus naked, but he's seen it enough that it doesn't faze him. The rest of it is - hard to take, but. Not like he doesn't know what Ian and the others do to his brother in here.

"Chloe is here," Ben says, getting to the point. "She's drunk, and she has a two-hour appointment."

Klaus' face falls. He doesn't like Chloe, even if he jokes about it. It's not like she's particularly creative with her insults or abuse, but it's hard for him to find a silver lining like he does with a (depressing) number of his other customers.

"Oh," Klaus says, staring into space for a moment. Then he shakes himself and smiles. "She must be pissed at Michael again. Or was it Harry? Maybe it's their _anniversary._ "

His deflection would probably work better if he didn't flinch at the strain of just trying to sit upright, but Ben doesn't call him out on it. "Maybe," he says instead. Chloe has been coming for months with no sign of getting over her issues; she's exactly the type of person to grow worse with time instead of better.

Ben hesitates, and eyes Klaus as his brother continues gingerly sitting up. That managed, he leans back against the wall, breathing carefully even.

"Want me to stay?" Ben offers quietly.

Klaus shoots him an unreadable look. Ben waits patiently.

After a few seconds, Klaus shakes his head.

Ben doesn't get the chance to respond, because the door swings open right after. Chloe stands there, framed in the doorway. She blinks at Klaus, eyes tracking over his body, and a sneer flickers across her face.

"Lemme guess," she says, voice slurred. "You just got done being Ian's fucktoy? Bet you liked _that,_ didn't you."

Klaus sends a very brief pointed glance at Ben, before focusing on Chloe. Ben sighs to himself, and phases through the wall.

Ian is in the living room, reading. He casts a single look of annoyance down the hall when Chloe really starts in on her tirade, but otherwise ignores it. Not uncommon, that. Chloe is probably the most _consistently_ loud of Klaus customers, but it's entirely normal for the apartment to be filled with a variety of ugly noises.

Ben elects not to stay in the same room as Ian. His bedroom is similarly out, so Ben ends up perched on the edge of the bathtub.

For lack of anything better to do, Ben tries to remember what baths feel like. Klaus adores baths, and will jump at the chance to take one whenever he can. He's 'earned' a few over the past six months, and he still enjoys them even if Ian doesn't let him take them alone. Ben stretches back into his memories to try and recall what baths were like.

Warm. A good bath is warm, he knows that much. Warm all over, like being wrapped in a heated blanket - not that Ben knows what a heated blanket is like, but he imagines it's something like a warm bath. Peaceful, too. Like you can let your guard down. Even if it's an illusion, it's nice to have that for a while.

And - Ben knows the Horror doesn't _like_ things. It only has varying levels of dislike, ranging from 'not worth bothering with' to 'murderous fury.' But Ben vaguely remembers that when he was little and had baths as a matter of course, they were much more on the 'not worth bothering with' side. The Horror was generally quiet, when he was warm and felt safe.

He's not sure if he likes remembering that. Childhood. It's painful all the time, of course, but whether it's bittersweet or just sour depends on the day.

Remembering the sight of Luther earlier makes him decide it's much more on the 'sour' side today.

It's then that he becomes aware of a noise.

It's faint. Muffled. It's intermittent and gets repeatedly cut off and it's almost buried beneath Chloe's suddenly increased volume. It would be fairly hard to identify - that is, if Ben didn't know exactly what it was.

Ben is on his feet in an instant and rushing out of the bathroom. The apartment is small enough that he only has to swing around and tumble through a wall to get into the bedroom where Klaus and Chloe are and he rights himself and -

\- and he sees the blood.

There's so much, far too much, and it's soaking the bed and it's all over Klaus and Chloe's hands are coated with it and she's holding a knife and the tip is digging into Klaus' chest and she's half-shrieking, eyes wild and empty, and Klaus is crying and trying to twist away and his hands are scrabbling at her arm but he doesn't have purchase and -

Ben is screaming, he thinks. He's screaming at Chloe, screaming at her to _stop hurting him, stop it, put the knife down or I'll kill you, I swear I'll fucking rip you apart stop hurting him don't touch him don't you fucking touch him **I'll kill you -**_

\- and Chloe can't hear him, _they never fucking hear him,_ but Klaus does and his eyes lock onto Ben and he goes utterly, absolutely pale, and he flinches hard enough that Chloe's knife skips over a rib, and then he goes absolutely still and silent.

Chloe either doesn't notice or doesn't care, and Ben can't tell if Klaus is even _breathing_ and he tries to pull her off him but his arms go right through her _like always_ and she digs in the knife again and there's a fresh spurt of blood and she fucking _laughs -_

And then the door opens and Ben has never, _ever_ been so happy to see Ian.

"What the - shit!" Ian says, and he rushes in and bodily pulls Chloe off of Klaus. She shrieks and wriggles, but Ben is more concerned with how her last cut skitters off-course and goes deeper than the others.

"Fuck," Ben says wildly, hands hovering uselessly over his brother's chest, feeling hysteria rising in his throat. "Fuck, Klaus? Klaus, it's okay, it's okay, please look at me, just look at me, okay? Can you do that, please? Klaus?"

Klaus doesn't look at him. He's staring off into space, and no, no, please no, not now, Ben thought he'd be ready because he _knows_ this has been coming for years and he thought he was ready but he's not, he'll never be ready, please no -

Ben looks down at Klaus chest, frantically trying to gauge the depth of the cuts, and there's _so much blood_ and he thought he we used to that, he _is_ used to that, Ben has been covered in blood himself more times than he can count and surely it must have been more blood than this but he can't imagine it was, there's so _much,_ more than makes sense, bubbling up from the cuts that are arranged on Klaus' chest -

In - patterns?

Ben blinks, and blinks again, and it takes a long, long second to realize - not patterns. Letters.

And then there's a sheet being thrown over Klaus and Ian is pressing down on the cuts and Klaus jerks and makes an involuntary noise. He stills again immediately after, but Ben can see now - he's breathing, he's breathing, not steadily but he is, and Chloe is thrown over in the corner looking confused and the knife is nowhere in sight and Ian keeps pressing down and Klaus is alive. He's alive, even if he isn't looking at anyone and isn't moving but that just means he's catatonic, that happens often enough, he'll be _fine_ he has to be _fine_ he can't die not now not ever Ian just needs to keep pressing -

And Ian does keep pressing.

He keeps pressing, until he ties the sheet around Klaus and goes to call 911, because however sociopathic Ian is he is also pragmatic, and pragmatic people know better than to let their sex slaves die in their apartments and have a body to deal with.

And Ben watches as Ian goes back to pressing, and as Chloe decides now is a great time for a nap. He watches as the paramedics arrive, and they take over caring for Klaus’ wound. He watches as they load him onto a stretcher and bring him out of Ian's apartment for the first time in six months. He watches as they struggle to stabilize him on the ride to the hospital. He watches as Klaus is rushed to a doctor, watches as the nurses notice the track marks on his arms and worriedly whisper to each other in hushed tones, watches a couple policemen arrive and wince when they learn what has been carved on his brother's chest, watches as one turns to another and sighs "fucking hate crimes, man."

He watches these scenes occur as if from very far away, world moving much slower and much - jumpier, blockier, than usual. He stares at Klaus, lying on a hospital bed, eyes closed. Maybe asleep, maybe not, but either way no one's getting any answers from him for a while.

Ben turns and walks out the door.

The hospital is large, but that is probably more of an impediment to people who need to mind walls. Ben walks away from Klaus room in a straight line, and within a couple minutes he's out on the street. He keeps going, cars brushing by him and pedestrians utterly ignorant of his presence. He walks past buildings and houses and apartments, past streets he hasn't seen in months and skies that are the same as ever. He walks until he can feel the tether in his chest tighten, signifying he's almost walked too far.

He stops. Looks around.

There's an alley, a little off to his right. He enters it. It isn't very clean, but there's no one around, and that's the important thing.

Ben opens his mouth to start screaming. It's what he always does, when things like this - not exactly like this, but in this general category - happen. He screams. At Klaus, whoever's hurt him, at himself, at life, at God. He screams until all the poison inside of him has bled out (bled out like Klaus on that fucking bed) and he feels better. Not okay, never okay, but not like - this.

Ben opens his mouth -

And nothing comes out.

He can't -

Why can't he - 

What -

There's something on his cheeks.

Ben reaches up, hand shaking and touches it. It's wet.

Oh.

Oh.

He closes his mouth.

He closes his mouth, and he crumples to the dirty ground of the alleyway.

And he cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Body horror, fairly heavy dubcon, forced prostitution, homophobic/derogatory language, slut-shaming, verbal and physical abuse, implied/referenced homophobia, hate crime, blood/injury.
> 
> ....At least he's away from Ian?


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at end.

Ian skips town.

It's less of a getaway and more of an abandonment, Ben figures. Because while Ian is a verifiable scumbag, and there's _more_ than enough evidence that Klaus was being drugged and sold, it turns out that Ian's brother actually _is_ a policeman. He can't completely cover for Ian, but with Ian gone the case gets relegated to the bottom of the priority list. After all, they have Chloe, and a single queer junkie prostitute isn't all that _important_ in the grand scheme of things.

Ben sits by Klaus in the hospital, and thinks that ten years ago, when he still had a beating heart in his chest, he would have been utterly shocked to be confronted with this kind of dismissal. Five years ago, it would have stoked the burning rage inside of him, made him imagine the Horror ripping all those bastards apart for daring to say his brother's life is essentially worthless.

Now, he mostly just feels empty.

Klaus is shaking, even though he's only half conscious. He knows something is wrong, eyes darting around the unfamiliar room with undisguised terror. His hands keep scrabbling at the blankets, the bedrails, and his own arms, searching for something he can't identify but can tell is missing.

Ben could tell him to stop looking.

Because the thing is: the hospital has decided not to give him drugs.

It's only practical. The track marks on Klaus' arm brand him as an addict, and they have no idea what he's been taking. _Klaus_ has no idea what he's been taking. After a while, Ian just stopped telling him. Ben thinks he's probably on heroin, but not _just_ that, and Ian never was shy with experimenting. The risk of a bad combination with whatever he's on has stayed the doctors' hands when it comes to medications.

They explained this to Klaus, apologetically, after he was unable to tell them what he's been taking. Ben doesn't think it's really sunk in for Klaus yet, that he's going to be going through withdrawal very soon. It's barely sunk in that he's out of Ian's apartment.

"Ben?" Klaus says, sounding uncertain and lost. His eyes skitter across the room, and take a few seconds to really focus on Ben when they find him.

"Hey," Ben says, keeping his voice easy and calm. "You got hurt. You're in the hospital. I know it hurts, but you're going to be okay."

Klaus shudders, and grasps at his sheets. "I - I don't - where's -"

"Ian is gone," Ben says. "He isn't coming back."

Klaus stills, and his eyes go wide. "I - what? But - what am I gonna - how am I -"

"It's going to be okay, Klaus," Ben says, and he's glad Klaus is too out of it to recognize that Ben doesn't really believe that. "Just rest. You'll be okay."

He gets a few more confused blinks, but there's still at least a small part of Klaus that trusts Ben, and he settles down. Ben leans back in his chair and represses a sigh.

They've been having basically the same conversation over and over again roughly every half-hour. Ben can recite it by rote now. It's kind of irritating, but he knows it's going to get a _lot_ more antagonistic once withdrawal really kicks in, so he can't complain too much.

Ben knows he should probably start planning for what's going to happen soon enough. Klaus is going to start going through withdrawal, and who even knows how _that's_ going to play out. Somehow, Ben suspects he's not going to take it with the same grace he did two years ago. This time, he's badly injured and _way_ more fucked up in the head.

And, of course, there's possession to worry about.

Ben scrubs a hand over his face. Possession, possession, possession. It's always been easy to - well, not _ignore_ it, because that's not really possible when it shapes pretty much all of Klaus' life. But it _is_ easy to - underestimate it. Ben has only ever seen it happen once, after all, and even if that night is still pretty high on his list of worst experiences ever it's easy to look at Klaus and wonder if he's maybe blowing the entire thing out of proportion. Klaus is basically the poster child for overreaction, after all. The lengths he goes to to deny ghosts the opportunity to possess him are extreme by any measure. For fuck's sake, he _willingly stayed with Ian._ Ben might be biased, but he has a hard time imagining _anything_ could genuinely justify that.

It is, however, hard to deny that a hospital is - probably the absolute worst place for Klaus to get sober. Ben (ironically) doesn't know all that much about the circumstances of most ghosts, but even he can figure out hospitals must be packed with them. If Klaus gets sober here, of all places, he is absolutely going to be possessed. Guaranteed.

And it honestly almost doesn't _matter_ whether the eventual possessor will entertain thoughts of violence or not. Last time, two and a half years ago, Klaus was prepared and levelheaded and he still ended up mutilating himself. Now….now his situation is the farthest thing from controlled, and his head is a goddamned mess. Ben is half-terrified Klaus will straight-up try to kill himself if he gets possessed.

What can Ben do in the face of that?

He's afraid the answer is 'not much.' Maybe even 'nothing.'

Like _always._

"Ben?" Klaus says, sounding small and scared. Even though he's physically almost a decade older than Ben, and his lifestyle has aged him practically another decade on top of that, he still looks so goddamned _young._

"I'm right here, Klaus," Ben says, the words like ash in his mouth. "You're going to be okay."

**********

It's pretty easy to tell when Klaus starts to tip over into withdrawal. Faint smudges appear in the corners of Ben's vision. A lot of them. They move quickly, jerkily, more like flickering shadows than actual people. There's whispering to go with them too, of course. It fades in and out like static, but it's steadily gaining in volume the longer the clock keeps ticking.

There's also the fact that Klaus starts panicking, realizing what's happening.

"No, no," Klaus says, eyes wide with terror instead of drugs for once. His gaze skitters over the room, and he scrambles back up against the headboard. "No, no, _no -_ "

"Hey, hey, Klaus, it's okay, just look at me," Ben says, standing and holding up his hands. He doesn't try to step closer, because that's never helped, but he tries looking as unthreatening as possible. Considering he's capable of killing any given group of people in any given room, he's surprisingly good at that.

Usually, at least. Klaus' eyes dart to him, and his brother moans, deep in his throat.

"No," Klaus says, sounding horrified, breathless. "No, Ben, don't - don't say - _please -_ "

"Shit," Ben realizes, remembers. Right, how could he forget what saying Klaus' name did last time? He glances around the room, but thankfully the ghosts don't seem formed enough to have caught his slip. "Sorry, sorry. I won't say it again, I promise. It's okay."

Klaus shakes his head again, and it's impossible to say whether he's responding to Ben or lost in his own head again. "No, no, no," he babbles. "No, no, please - Ian, I need, I need it, where -"

Ben sighs, and eyes the flickers. They vanish when he looks at them directly, but they're slowly gaining in definition and it's only a matter of time.

A nurse comes in.

Klaus jumps when she comes close, looking at her with incomprehension. She smiles at him - gently, if perfunctionarily.

"She's alive," Ben clarifies, when Klaus just looks even more terrified. It's strange, having to specify that. Ben reaches back into vague memories of their childhood and wonders if Klaus was always this uncertain about the mortal status of the people around him.

….probably.

Ben sighs again.

The nurse checks Klaus over, not commenting on how he flinches at her touch. He must really be high-strung, Ben notes. He hasn't flinched away from anyone in a _long_ time, just accepting whatever anyone decides to do.

The nurse changes the bandages on Klaus' chest. She must have been warned, because her face doesn't change expression at the slur carved into it.

Ben looks away. He doesn't need to see that again. Even though Chloe was drunk, she took a lot of care when cutting into Klaus, and the word is perfectly readable. The last letter is kind of mangled, thanks to Ian's rescue, but it's still recognizable as a G.

It's not even close to the first time Klaus has had that (and many other) words thrown at him. It is, however, the first time anyone has decided to permanently inscribe it on his skin.

The nurse finishes up, and smiles at Klaus again. He looks at her, confused. Ben can't actually tell what he's thinking.

"Do you need anything?" The nurse asks.

"Uh," Klaus says, eyes flicking over to Ben.

Ben shakes his head. No, all Klaus needs is to be alone right now. Which he's not going to get, so this woman can't actually do anything for him.

"I, um -" Klaus bites his lip. "I - drugs?"

"I'm sorry," the nurse says. She actually does sound a little bit sorry, which is enough to make Klaus blink at her in surprise. "We don't know what you're already on, so we can't give you anything else. I know it has to hurt."

"What?" Klaus says, face freezing with terror. "I - wait, no, please, I have to, please, I'll - I'll do whatever you want, I will, please -"

"Hey, Kl- hey," Ben says, catching himself. "She's not going to give you drugs, man. Can you look at me?"

"You don't know that!" Klaus snaps at Ben. "She _might,_ I just - Hey, wait, wait, please -"

This last part was said to the nurse, as she walks out the door. She pauses at his call, and shakes her head. "I'm sorry."

"No, no, no, _wait,_ " Klaus says, voice rising in panic, words stumbling over themselves. The nurse vanishes, and panic rises up. "Wait, wait, no, no, I need drugs, I _need_ them, I need - Ben, where are drugs? I can't stay here, I need drugs, I need to -"

"You _need_ to stay here," Ben says, trying to dredge up irritation and instead just feeling exhausted. "Look, I know you're scared. But you're hurt, you're underweight, you have no safety net, and I _know_ you're probably going to have trouble with the ghosts but _you can't leave here._ There's no way you won't drop dead within forty-eight hours if you discharge yourself now -"

"Have trouble?" Klaus says, sounding incredulous. Ben would be more appreciative of his lucidity if there wasn't such an expression of blatant disbelief on his face. " _Have trouble?_ Sure, you could put it that way. Or how about we say what's really gonna happen, Ben? They're going to appear and scream at me and _demand_ I notice them and ignore anything I say and when that's not enough they're going to fucking _crawl inside of me and -_ "

_"Will you shut up already?!"_ Ben bursts out, and Klaus flinches back as Ben is suddenly standing but he doesn't really notice that, overtaken by a buzz of rage. The Horror writhes in his stomach, feeding on the bubbling storm inside of him, and he keeps going. "Are you even listening to yourself? They're going to scream and abuse and hurt and violate you - wow, _that's_ a new one! That's been happening for fucking _years,_ Klaus! You've been running from possession your whole life and it's landed you _here!_ You're a half-dead homeless junkie, letting yourself be a toy for a bunch of sick _fucks_ who don't even see you as a person, and I'm supposed to believe this is _better?_ If you could just _get over yourself_ you could learn how to control it, and _don't say you can't because **when have you ever tried?**_ I've been with you for eight goddamn years, Klaus, and I'm _sick_ of it!"

"Then _leave!_ " Klaus throws back, eyes bright with fear but also anger, muscles tensed and body practically vibrating. "If I'm so stupid and selfish, why haven't you left yet? If I never change, if what I'm doing is so bad, if my life is so _horrible_ to you, then _why are you still here!_ "

"You _fucking know why!_ " Ben snaps.

The Horror _slams_ against his torso, and Ben staggers, breath stuttering to a halt. Instantly, he wraps his arms around himself and hunches over, forcing himself to start breathing again.

It's not as intense as it would have been if he were alive. The Horror is locked away, inaccessible, because no matter if Ben still exists he's not _physical_ anymore. The doorway has been lost (or cremated, to be precise), so the Horror is basically doing the equivalent of banging on a wall. But it's distracting, uncomfortable, maybe even painful. Ben always strove to never get angry in life, because that just riled it up.

In death, though, he's probably blown up more times than Old Faithful.

Ben takes a deep breath, and looks up at Klaus. His brother is staring at him with a blank face. Absolutely no expression.

"Well," Klaus says at last, and his voice is as flat as his expression. "Guess it's nice of you to finally -"

_"Klaus."_

They both freeze.

And, slowly, they look over at the door.

Which is filled - absolutely packed to bursting - with ghosts.

Rows and rows and rows of them, stretching back into the hallway, overlapping each other, phasing through walls and carts and people with no regard for physical boundaries. Wearing hospital gowns, for the most part, although there are some dressed in clothing that makes it clear they didn't have the chance to be changed into a gown. Blood, there's so much blood, endlessly spurting out of wounds and smeared on faces and soaked into hair, and they're limping on mangled legs and reaching with broken arms and gasping with punctured lungs and there are _so many._ Elderly people, middle-aged, teenagers, young adults, _children -_

All with their eyes fixed directly on Klaus.

And

Klaus

_screams._

And the crowd screams back, and suddenly they're boiling over, pushing in and racing at Klaus, screaming out his name and it's a tidal wave of noise and color, sending Ben staggering back at the onslaught, and he's crashing to the floor where all he can see are a forest of legs. He can't hear anything but the screaming, a whirling maelstrom assaulting his ears, and in the center - in the center -

Klaus is screaming. Klaus is screaming and that's bad, its bad and he needs to _stop it,_ he needs to rip apart whatever is making his brother scream like that and make sure Klaus is _safe,_ but there's something about that scream that brushes up against some tiny, almost-forgotten corner of Ben's mind, something he can't quite remember but he _knows_ it, he does, its wrong even on top of how Klaus absolutely should not ever scream in fear, why can't he remember -

There are people shouting, and Ben wouldn't pay the ghosts any attention but these voices aren't calling out to Klaus, they seem to be calling out to - each other?

_"Hold him down! **Hold him down!"**_

_"I'm TRYING!"_

_"Don't let him grab that!_

Ben scrambles to his feet and sees -

Oh. Oh, of course.

That's what the screaming meant.

Type 3.

The nurses and doctors are trying to hold Klaus down, but it's clearly very difficult. He's thrashing and writhing so violently Ben is half-surprised he hasn't broken or dislocated something yet. He's screaming, long and loud and unbroken, and his eyes are completely empty, a thousand miles away to a place Ben has never once been able to reach.

He's covered in blood.

Some of it is from his chest, where his bandages have either come undone or soaked through with all the activity. A nurse is frantically trying to stem the bleeding, but with Klaus bucking off everyone trying to restrain him it's not going very well.

More of the blood is smeared across his chin, staining his teeth - because another nurse is trying to stem the bleeding from his wrist, where he tried to bite it open.

Ben has only witnessed two of these particular panic attacks since his death, and all the understanding in the world cannot stop the wave of horror at seeing his brother _literally trying to kill himself._

"No!" Ben shouts, and lunges forward. It's useless, of course, _he's_ useless, he can't do anything against Klaus' screams and the horde of ghosts clawing at him and the too-bright red of all the blood, but muscle memory has him lunging anyways.

The ghosts and doctors alike pay him no mind, and even Klaus doesn't notice him. One time Ben managed to pivot him into a combined Type 1 and 2, which was _awful_ but better than the other time, when another junkie noticed his plight and _helpfully_ bashed him on the head with a rock until he fell unconscious. If Ben can just catch Klaus' attention, he can _try_ to recreate what he did that one time, even if he can't quite remember what he did he has to _try -_

He has to help Klaus, he has to help his brother, and the bitter tang of failure wells in his throat and he hears the faint whisper of _but you **can't** help him, you can never **ever** help him_ echoes in his ears and he screams out for Klaus but its lost amongst all the others calling out to him and Ben reaches out without thinking and grabs onto his brother -

and

he

sinks

in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: hate crime, detox, verbal abuse, panic attack, gore, attempted suicide.


	13. Chapter 13

At first, the sensation doesn't even register.

Not because it's faint. Not because he can't feel it. Rather, because it's the only thing he _can_ feel. It encompasses all his senses, steals all his attention, blots out the entire world. It's too _big_ to understand, the entirety of it too much for his tiny human brain. His mind automatically rejects it, uncomprehending. _No, I'm sorry, there has to be a mistake, that can't possibly be reality._

It's -

It's -

_**pain.** _

Pain so intense the entire rest of the world falls away, irrelevant. So much it doesnt make sense, erasing everything else to dominate his very _soul._ He gasps and chokes - what - why is he _breathing,_ why is he sucking in air, he doesn't have _lungs_ \- and there's a fresh wave of pain that wracks through his entire body and blacks out his vision.

He doesn't - what is this, _why is he in pain, he doesn't feel pain,_ he hasn't felt pain in - years, years and years, why is he in pain, _it hurts it hurts it hurts please please make it stop please make it stop make it stop make it **s t o p -**_

_'stop please no please no no no no no please don't please god no please please **PLEASE** '_

His mind latches onto the last time he felt this much pain - except even dying couldn't have hurt this much, nothing has ever hurt this much, nothing ever _could,_ his blood is boiling and skin is searing and bones are shattered and nerves screaming flesh tearing organs melting please no make it stop make it _stop -_

"Get the restraints on him _now,_ while he's still!"

Its too much, too much, worse than anything, he's burning he's burning _make it stop make it stop -_

And then -

It does.

Instantly, it feels like he's been plucked from boiling lava and thrown straight into - _nothingness._ No heat, no fear, _no pain._

Ben stumbles, the room tilting dangerously around him. He's - there's - what? There's lights, and colors, and - and people, all around, but the images don't make sense, not with the echoes of _painpain **pain**_ roaring through his head, and he blinks and breathes but they suddenly seem so much less important now - but when were they ever important? - and - what's going _on -_

Klaus.

Klaus is there, and if there is one thing Ben has learned to do since his death, it's focusing on Klaus. Ben pushes away all the other things clamoring for his attention, the thrashing Horror in his stomach and the dizziness in his head and the all-over shakes he's somehow acquired. He pushes it all away, because Klaus needs help and Ben has never, ever been able to help him, but he can't seem to stop trying.

The doctors have managed to restrain Klaus, tying down his limbs to the bed - when did that happen? - and he's still trying to get out. His face is a mess of blood and sweat, the rest of him not much better, and there's a broken, animal-like keening sound Ben only belatedly realizes is coming from his throat. He's crying, eyes blank and terrified, a million miles away. His movements are more automatic than anything, jerking and tugging at the restraints with spastic motions that still manage to convey no real hope of followthrough.

The doctors and nurses are standing around the bed, looking at Klaus warily. Several are still trying to stem the bleeding, a couple others are checking the restraints, and one is standing off in the corner trying to staunch the flow of blood from her nose.

There aren't as many ghosts.

It's not terribly high on the priority list, but Ben notes it, because instead of the seething mass of a few minutes ago there are only a half-dozen or so ghosts scattered within sight. That's - strange and potentially interesting, but he really kind of needs to deal with Klaus right now.

Ben approaches the bed, hands held up. "Hey," he says cautiously, making sure not to move slowly and smoothly, like he's talking to a wild animal. "Hey, Kl-um, bro. Can you hear me? Please say you can hear me?"

Klaus does not respond. His thrashing, however, is growing weaker.

Ben finds he can understand why. It's only hitting him now that he just - he just _possessed_ Klaus. Entirely on accident, and probably for less than a minute or two in total, but he did.

_Holy shit,_ a small part of his mind marvels. _Holy shit, I **can** do it._

The rest of him is mostly consumed with panic and terror and the aftershocks of _painpainpain_ to come up with anything entirely coherent. Or even mostly coherent.

Because - if Ben possessed Klaus, all that pain he felt is what Klaus is feeling _right now._

Ben - Ben hardly remembers what pain felt like. Or, well, he can call up the _memories_ well enough, but he hasn't actually _experienced_ any form of physical pain in eight and a half years. The very concept has faded in importance, and it's easy, so easy, to grow used to the endless numbness of death. So easy to look at living people's pain, at _Klaus'_ pain, and think _it can't possibly be that bad._

A semi-hysterical laugh crowds against Ben's teeth, and he only barely manages to swallow it down. Well. That's him told, then.

No wonder pain drives the ghosts out of Klaus. It’s unbearable, unimaginable, _unendurable._

Ben sucks in a shaky breath, and tries to pretend the nausea-like sensation he's feeling is because the Horror hasn't settled down since the possession.

Klaus has stopped struggling now. He's still shaking like a leaf in a windstorm, but he's stopped pulling against the restraints. There seem to be a lot fewer medical personnel around all of a sudden. Ben blinks, and wonders how long he's been lost in his own head.

The doctors stick around and do doctorly things for the next few minutes, checking to make sure Klaus' bandages are alright and the restraints are secure. They briefly try to rouse a response from him, but Klaus is well and truly catatonic. Eventually they leave, discussing the arrangements necessary for a suicide watch.

The ghosts are coming back.

There aren't many, not yet, but they're starting to notice Klaus again. Ben stiffens as one particularly bold one steps closer to Klaus, and before he can think he's sliding in between her and him. She - it - blinks at him, eyes vacant, and then dismisses him from consideration.

Right. Ben can't affect other ghosts, and they don't listen to him any more than living people do. He feels panic well up inside of him as he notices a couple more ghosts drifting closer, their eyes fixed on Klaus.

Fuck. _Fuck._ The last time this happened, Klaus had a way out - it got him a hole in the leg and another arrest warrant, but he got away and got drugs and stayed _sane._ Now, though - now he's under intense scrutiny, unable to so much as move, mind in shambles, badly injured, completely at the mercy of the crazed ghosts that are drifting closer and closer, _fuck -_

In a burst of clarity, Ben realizes three things:

One: Klaus will get even worse if he is possessed. It may not even matter what the ghosts will _do,_ it's just that possession has always been Klaus’ worst nightmare. The monster under his skin, the thing he’s always been afraid of. If Klaus is possessed for any length of time, Ben honestly doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to truly recover.

Two: being possessed is inevitable. Klaus is ripe for the taking, completely helpless to either prevent it or drive them out. It may be that any ghost trying to possess him gets tossed out within minutes, just like Ben was, but….

There are dozens of ghosts here. Hundreds. Even if any one who tries to possess him can't stand it for long, _they will all try._ And that - that is honestly the only way Ben can imagine the first thing getting worse. Klaus’ mind is exquisitely vulnerable right now, stretched thin from months (years) of abuse and drugs, soaked in fear and pain. Being subjected to his worst nightmare _over and over and over and over again_ would probably completely destroy any hint of sanity he has left.

Three: Ben is capable of possession.

And -

And that's the thing, isn't it?

It will hurt him. It will hurt Klaus so, so much. Ben can't imagine how much he'll be hurting his brother, feels his stomach twist at the mere idea. It's the antithesis of all he's been trying to do for the past eight and a half years, against everything he's always strove for.

But if he doesn't, Klaus will be hurt worse.

Swallowing, Ben whirls around to face Klaus. The ghosts move closer, several more phasing in through the walls, their eyes fixed hungrily on his brother. One moans softly, and a few more take it up.

A few more stagger closer to the bed -

And Ben makes his decision.

"Sorry," Ben whispers, knowing how utterly useless the word is in the face of what he's about to do. "I'm so sorry, Klaus."

Then, without giving himself time to hesitate, Ben steps closer and grabs at Klaus and summons up that same feeling of _desperation_ from before -

and once again

he

sinks

in.

He's slightly more prepared for the pain this time.

_Slightly._

He gasps - feels his lungs - _Klaus’ lungs_ \- stutter and stumble and grasp for air. The pain is enough to make his vision go fuzzy, the world fading in and out like fuzzy television. There are - sensations? - things on his skin, things he can’t identify, firm-softness around his wrists and ankles and slick-smooth over his torso and rough-scratchy-pressure on his chest and wrist and and and and -

Too much, it’s too much, he’s gasping and shaking and _it’s too much,_ the picture of the room goes dim and his own noises (he’s making noises?) are fading in and out and _it hurts it hurts it hurts -_

_’please please please no no please don’t please no no no no no nononononononono -’_

Ben squeezes his (Klaus’) eyes shut and sucks in a ragged breath, feels the world tilt to the side. It’s like he’s on a boat in a hurricane, _why the fuck do people have an inner ear anyways,_ and down is in six different directions at once. The pain radiates throughout his entire being, and it has the creativity to come in _different kinds_ now. There’s the gaping clawing _hunger_ in his veins, demanding drugs drugs DRUGS - there’s the sharp coldness of his chest where Chole left her opinion - there’s the ragged weeping on his wrist, half-torn open and crying out to the world - there’s a million different conflicting sensations he can’t identify but they _have_ to be pain, there’s too many to interpret them any differently -

It’s overwhelming, agonizing, and the world is spinning and crashing and _it hurts_ and he can’t, he can’t, he has to get out he can’t do this _it’s too much -_

And then -

he

feels

the

Horror

_twist._

And Ben _freezes._

Because - because he knows that feeling. He’s felt it his whole life, on and off, the Horror probing at the doorway in his stomach, waiting to come out, pushing, grasping at the edges, _pushing through -_

He’s felt it his whole life, _but never in death._

Instantly, _instantly,_ Ben focuses all his attention on keeping it in. Nothing else matters, not pain or terror or even Klaus, because the Horror takes precedence over everything, _it has to._ Ben needs to keep it contained, needs to hold it in, never let it free, _can’t let it free_ because it will kill everyone and everything in its path, that’s what it _does,_ and this is a fucking hospital where everyone is helpless and injured, it would have a fucking _feast -_

Ben hasn’t had to truly restrain the Horror in eight and a half years, but the methods come back to him with startling clarity. He goes utterly still, focusing all his attention and energies inward. He centers himself, yanks a cover of artificial calm over himself and works to make it real, _he has to make it real._ He clenches his abdominal muscles (and has a brief moment of disorientation when he finds them slightly different from his own _but that doesn’t matter he does it anyways_ ) and and forces himself to breathe steadily and puts up his best mental defenses and shoves the strongest possible _‘NO’_ at the Horror even if that one never seemed to help much.

And -

\- eventually -

\- after an uncountable length of time -

\- the Horror recedes.

Grudgingly, obviously discontent, still twisting into non-Euclidean forms Ben can only feel the edges of, but it does.

Ben holds his breath, hardly daring to relax, but as the seconds tick by he slowly releases the iron grip on his body.

Or. Wait. No, not _his_ body.

Ben blinks open his (not _his,_ though) eyes, and stares up at the ceiling. He’s breathing now, lungs filling up with oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide. It’s - it’s a very strange sensation. Ben breathed as a ghost, but more out of habit than anything, and it was never _necessary._ Now, if he stops breathing, there’s a mounting pressure in his chest that quickly grows unbearable. He _remembers_ what needing to breathe was like, but experiencing it again is an unexpected shock, like tripping on a floor he thought he knew the layout of.

The pain is still there. It’s still there, radiating through the entirety of Klaus’ body, sinking deep into every horribly physical atom. Ben has to struggle to keep his mind from sinking back down into the mire, spiraling into another panicked breakdown. He can’t let that happen.

His vision - well, Klaus’ vision - is blurry and fuzzy. Ben blinks a few times, and it only makes the picture marginally better (he vaguely wonders if Klaus needs glasses). He can, however, see enough to realize that the hospital room is….completely bare. No ghosts in sight, not even through the gaps in the curtains that show a window to the hallway.

Ben blinks, and tries to summon up some confusion or curiosity about that, but fuck it, he’s too tired. At least _one_ thing is going right.

Carefully, Ben tries to flex his - well, not _his,_ but - _ugh,_ Ben decides to just call them his for simplicity’s sake - fingers. They move easily enough on his right hand, but his left leaves him wincing, pain shooting out from his wrist. Fuck. For the first time, Ben realizes that he can _taste_ things again, and his mouth is currently reporting the taste of blood. He runs a tongue over his teeth and feels a very strong urge to vomit.

He battles it back down. It’s not like he hasn’t tasted blood before, he reminds himself. He’s had bloody noses, and he lost a few of his teeth late, and sometimes he accidentally opened his mouth in training or battle (once, he accidentally swallowed a terrorist’s tooth. That time he _did_ vomit). Ben ignores how this isn’t his own blood or some stranger’s but _his brother’s blood he’s tasting._ He just. Needs to think of it like it’s his own. That’s all. It’s _fine._

Ben swallows, then gags at the sensation of saliva (and blood) actually going down his throat. _Fuck,_ he forgot swallowing with a physical throat actually does that.

It takes a few more minutes to catalogue the rest of what’s going on with his newly physical form. To sum up: he fucking hates it. He’s in ungodly amounts of pain, he can’t get comfortable, there are far too many alien sensations that send alarm bells shrieking in his head whether they’re innocuous or not, the Horror is closer to the surface than he ever thought it would be again, and he has never appreciated the numbness of death more.

Ben blinks at the ceiling, dully, feeling the lethargy of life dragging on his bones. “Fuck,” he croaks out, Klaus’ tired rasp schoing through the room. “This is terrible.”

‘Then _leave._ ’

Ben _jerks_ in surprise, letting out a startled squawk. His wrist gets jarred, sending lightning bolts of pain shooting up through his arm. His vision greys out for a second, leaving him gasping.

But none of that really matters, because that was _Klaus’ voice._

“What?” Ben says, unsteadily. Klaus’ voice sounds slightly different than he’s used to, probably because he’s using it himself. “I - Klaus?”

‘Please,’ Klaus says, and his tone is completely, utterly devoid of hope. ‘Please just leave.’

It takes Ben probably longer than it should to realize Klaus is talking to him. And - his voice is _inside his head._

“What,” Ben says. then he blinks and closes his eyes. He tries to focus on - clearing his mind, or whatever. Blindly, he tries _sending_ a thought towards - wherever Klaus is.

‘Klaus? Are you there?’

‘Don’t. Don’t use my name, please. Please just leave. _Please._ ’

Klaus’ tone is unchanged. It’s utterly flat and dead, no inflection at all. He clearly doesn’t expect to be listened to. In fact, the words sound like they’re being recited by rote, automatic and stilted.

Ben’s stomach squirms, so he has to spend a minute making sure the Horror stays locked away, but then he returns his attention to Klaus.

‘Klaus,’ Ben says. Or, well, ‘says.’ He’s not entirely certain he’s doing this right. ‘Klaus, it’s me. It’s Ben. I’m not going to hurt you, it’s alright.’

There’s a long, long silence. It stretches out for several minutes, the ticking sound of the clock the only change in the room. Ben debates saying something, several times, but he swallows it down.

Then, eventually:

‘....Ben?’

Klaus’ voice is small, and hesitant, and a few other things entirely unlike him. But it’s an actual cognizant response colored by non-panicking emotion, so Ben lets out a sigh of relief.

‘Yeah,’ Ben says, trying to sound gentle. How the fuck does he do tone like this? ‘Yeah, it’s me. You’re okay, Klaus, I promise.’

There’s another long silence.

‘.....You’re possessing me.’ This time, his ‘voice’ is even smaller.

Ben winces.

‘Yeah,’ Ben admits. ‘Yeah, I am. I’m sorry, Klaus, it was the only thing I could think of. The other ghosts - they were going to hurt you. I won’t hurt you, okay? I _promise_ I’m not going to hurt you.’

There is yet more silence.

This time it stretches out longer. Ben swallows as the clock ticks past five minutes. He tries to keep his (no, it’s _Klaus’_ ) body still, but it’s hard to do that when he seems to have to handle breathing manually and small tremors keep barrelling through him.

At ten minutes, Ben swallows again.

‘Klaus?’ he prods gingerly.

He can almost, _almost_ feel a presence in the back of his mind, feels it shifting slightly.

‘......okay.’

This time, it’s barely a whisper. Ben blinks.

‘...Okay,’ Ben repeats. ‘Okay. That’s - that’s good. Alright. You’ll be okay, Klaus. Promise.’

There’s no answer this time.

Ben closes his _(Klaus’)_ eyes, and tries to believe his own words.


	14. Chapter 14

The next several days are mostly a blur.

Ben keeps his grip on Klaus’ body, even though it makes his gut churn and the Horror push against its newly instantiated door. It’s _hard_ to keep possessing Klaus, but Ben soldiers on. The thought of Klaus being possessed by a horde of crazed ghosts keeps him stubbornly pushing through.

Even then, there are some things that seriously make him reconsider this whole ‘alive’ thing.

Sleeping, for one. Ben doesn’t remember sleep being this unnerving. He hasn’t lost continuity of consciousness in eight and a half years, and jolting awake a few hours after making contact with Klaus almost sends Ben into a panic attack, wondering why on earth he has a blank spot in his memory. He hasn’t managed to sleep for more than a few hours at a time since.

The people, for another. Ben hasn’t conversed with anyone besides his brother in a long fucking time, and he’s caught flat-footed when the doctors and nurses start to _talk_ to him. He always wanted to speak to people, to say things and have people’s eyes settle on him and just _listen,_ but now that they are he finds himself overwhelmed. He’s so used to being invisible he has no idea what to do now that he’s not. And it doesn’t really help that they all think he’s suicidal, speaking in comforting tones and gently suggesting he might benefit from seeing one of the hospital psychologists.

Eating is horrible. There’s no way around it. The food itself is alright, Ben supposes, but he almost chokes on a piece of chicken when he forgets he has to chew things before swallowing, and Klaus’ body is _not_ used to full and healthy meals. Taste is a confusing and often overwhelming thing, so much that Ben has to request blander meals (although the nurse’s face at that is actually kind of funny).

What comes _after_ eating and drinking is best not dwelled on. Ben makes every effort to forget the entire thing.

And, of course, the pain. The wounds are agonizing enough, but there’s also the bone-deep bruises and aches left by Ian and his clients. Ben tries to ignore those, he really does. Most of the time he even succeeds, thanks to the persistent, all-over _hunger_ for drugs singing through his veins. The doctors still refuse to give any painkillers, and while Ben can appreciate their reasons intellectually, for the first time he really understands exactly _why_ Klaus can’t get sober on his own. Ben doesn’t even know what a high feels like and he wants it, craves it, _needs_ it with all the strength of a body that’s been guzzling drugs for years. He thinks he might hate Klaus, just a little, for making him _understand._

There’s also how Klaus is reacting to the whole thing.

That first conversation is the most Ben can draw out of Klaus at one time. He tries coaxing Klaus into talking about the hospital, the ghosts, what he remembers about Chloe, the decor, the food, the doctors and nurses, the weather, _anything._ But Klaus only ever offers monosyllabic answers, if he answers at all. His responses are all devoid of emotion, as if spoken robotically. Ben would wonder if the mindspeak thing they’re doing just _can’t_ convey emotion, but sorting through his jumbled memories of the first possession has him recalling Klaus pleading, and _that_ was definitely emotional. So the only logical conclusion is that Klaus just - doesn’t want to talk to Ben. Not while they’re sharing a body, not while Ben is _using_ his body.

It’s - it’s a tossup whether Ben finds no enjoyment of actually being alive again because Klaus’ body is in such bad shape, or because Ben knows what the possession is doing to Klaus.

Or. Well. He _doesn’t_ really know. And that’s the whole problem.

_Just a while longer,_ Ben tells himself, leaning back against the pillows, breathing out. _Just a while longer._

And he resolves to make that true. The wounds are healing well, five days after being inflicted. The doctors are vague on a release date, and they keep suggesting he probably shouldn’t leave too soon. But that’s only because they still have the lingering idea that he’s going to kill himself, even though Ben _thinks_ he did a decent enough job of pretending the drugs Ian gave Klaus were the cause of his little meltdown. It hasn’t stopped them from giving him the suicide trays during mealtimes (all disposable dishes and utensils, nothing even resembling a knife, and someone just _happening_ to be nearby everytime he eats), but Ben thinks he’s getting through to them.

(Granted, he probably gave off a _wildly_ inaccurate impression when the doctors sincerely apologized for restraining him, and he told them it was fine, he didn’t mind. Their badly-hidden looks of absolute _horror_ reminded him that everyone here knows exactly what Ian and company did to Klaus, probably better than Ben himself does. He’s not entirely sure, but he thinks his nonchalance at being restrained made one of them actually throw up.)

(Not that Klaus would have been any _less_ nonchalant about it. They’re probably right to be worried.)

And speaking of Klaus, Ben tries prodding at him. It’s a tossup whether Klaus will answer, the coin usually landing on _no,_ but hope springs eternal. Ben is worried that if he stops trying to make Klaus interact with the world, his brother will just….fade away.

Honestly, it feels like he’s already half-gone.

‘Klaus?’ Ben says. ‘Can you hear me?’

Silence.

‘Maybe I should rephrase that,’ Ben says. ‘Klaus, I know you can hear me. Could you please just talk to me?’

More silence.

‘Come on, man,’ Ben says, a hint of exasperation slipping into his mental tone. ‘You have to be lonely in there. You’re one of the biggest extroverts in the family. Aren’t you _bored_ staying so quiet?’

_Even more_ silence.

Ben sighs, and shifts slightly on the bed. It’s much more comfortable, now that he’s not strapped down and every movement doesn’t send agonizing pain shooting through him. There’s a television in the room, but Ben mostly keeps it turned off. There are times when he can handle all the sound and colors without a headache (yet another thing he wasn’t thrilled to regain), but those are few and far between. The only movement in the room at all is the hands of the clock, and the slow churning of the Horror.

It’s settled down. Not completely, but that’s only to be expected. Ben has handled the Horror at its worst (until he didn’t, but he pushes that thought away), and this is nowhere near that threshold. It’s downright calm, compared to how it’s mostly been since his death. Of course, he has to keep a portion of his attention on it at all times, because now it _can_ actually get out and act on its frustrations, but Ben finds that’s the easiest thing he’s been able to do since possessing Klaus. Some things you really do never forget.

‘I think we can get released within the next week, if I play it right,’ Ben remarks to Klaus. He doesn’t really expect an answer by now, but it’s at least something to do.

‘Good.’

Klaus’ reply makes Ben jerk his head up, narrowly missing hitting it on the headboard. Holy shit, an actual response. Unprompted, even. Ben feels his borrowed face gain a small smile.

‘Yeah,’ he says, aiming for casual. He doesn’t want to scare Klaus off with too much exuberance (and the fact that he’s thinking _that_ about _Klaus_ is just proof of how extraordinarily fucked up this whole situation is). ‘It’s pretty good. Although I admit I’ll probably miss the hospital food.’ Ben pauses and reflects. ‘Which I’m sure is a rare sentence.’

‘Mm,’ Klaus says. He doesn’t sound very interested, and Ben searches around for a topic that might keep him talking.

‘The Horror is settling down,’ Ben says, pressing a hand to his abdomen. It’s different from his own stomach, of course, though mostly because Klaus is still too skinny. He’s not on the verge of starvation anymore (if only because that would have been bad for Ian’s business), so Ben had thought that was the one silver lining in this entire clusterfuck. But it turns out Klaus only looked better _compared_ to being mostly-starved. He’s still nowhere near healthy, as the doctors have explained. ‘It’s weird feeling it again. Having to hold it back.’

‘...What?’

Ben blinks at the hint of emotion in Klaus’ voice. ‘Huh?’ he says, intelligently.

‘Wait,’ Klaus says, and holy fuck, that sounds like actual intent in his tone. ‘You have to hold the Horror back? Like you did when you were alive?’

Ben can’t answer for several seconds, thanks to the sheer _shock_ of hearing Klaus speaking entire sentences. But he shakes off his paralysis and blinks again, focusing on the question. ‘Um, yeah? That’s - I’ve been doing it for the last several days, Klaus. I think - I mean, I think whoever is in control of your body can use their powers, but when they aren’t in control the powers are dormant. I mean, _I_ haven’t seen any ghosts around.’

And he hasn’t. Not once, in the five days he’s been possessing Klaus, has he seen a single ghost. It’s a relief, really - Ben remembers exactly what the horde of spectors looked and acted like, and he already has enough to deal with.

‘I -’ Klaus cuts himself off, and there’s a pause for several seconds.

Ben waits, trying to push away the worry that Klaus will sink back into apathy. They’re having a conversation, Klaus is responding, everything is _fine._

‘....Oh,’ Klaus says eventually. ‘I didn’t - realize. Are you - okay?’

‘ _Okay_ is probably an exaggeration,’ Ben admits. ‘But I know how to deal with it. It won’t come out unless something really bad happens. Or if I see Ian again.’

‘Oh,’ Klaus says. ‘....Okay. I thought - I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t think you’d have to deal with it again. Sorry. About that.’

‘It’s alright,’ Ben says, leaning back against the pillows. ‘Not like we could have known either way, and it’s not your fault.’

‘Mm,’ Klaus says vaguely. And - shit, his tone is falling back into disinterest.

Ben races through things he could say to keep Klaus talking. Their family? No, too fraught. More about getting released? Maybe, but they’ve sort of exhausted that avenue. Their powers?

‘Do you want to take control?’ Ben says without thinking.

There is a moment of frozen silence.

‘....What?’

Ben blinks a few times, and thinks through what he just blurted out. ‘I - do you want to have control for a while? I - if I can even do that, I mean. Can I do that? I just thought that we could see if our powers really do go dormant when we’re not in control. And it would be good to figure out the rules of possession, Klaus. We know the big stuff, but the details are important too. Is it okay if we try?’

‘I - don’t know if you can give me control,’ Klaus says. He sounds slightly bewildered.

‘- right,’ Ben says. ‘I guess the other ghosts wouldn’t care about that. But I can try and see if it’s possible?’

‘......okay,’ Klaus says, sounding uncertain.

‘Okay,’ Ben repeats, and frowns. ‘Okay. So, uh, let’s see….’

He closes his eyes, and - well, he isn’t trying to stop possessing Klaus, so he doesn’t allow his metaphorical grip on the body to loosen. But god, if he can give Klaus control, even if not for very long, it might help his brother recover from what Ben is doing. It might let them interact more like equals again, instead of jailer and prisoner.

Ben thinks over the issue, and tries just - _handing off_ control to Klaus.

_This is not my body,_ Ben reminds himself. _I’m just a visitor, and it’s time to move to the passenger seat. This is **Klaus’ body,** and he deserves to be in charge. It’s hurting him that he can’t be. It’s **his** body, and he’s had **more** than enough people using it without permission. He should have it back. It’s not mine, it’s **his,** it’s his, it’s his…._

Nothing happens.

He doesn’t feel different. There’s still the myriad of sensations that have become normal over the past several days. The soft sounds of the hospital still filter through the door and into Klaus’ ears. He’s still breathing, slowly and steadily.

Ben doesn’t sigh, though he does feel his hopes fall a little. Well, succeeding on a first try would have been nice, but that just means he has to try again. Maybe he should meditate? Or visualization might help.

He opens his eyes -

but

they

don’t

comply.

Ben freezes.

Or - no, he doesn’t freeze. Because he can’t.

Instead, he feels his - no, _Klaus’_ face twitch, and then his eyebrows furrow slightly. He stops taking in air.

‘Klaus?’ Ben says.

Klaus’ eyes open without any input from Ben. The sight of the hospital room greets him - them. There’s a quick moment of blackness, then another, and it takes a moment for Ben to realize Klaus just blinked.

‘Oh,’ Ben says, feeling dumbfounded, mind ground to a halt. ‘It worked.’

Klaus’ chest twitches, and then he suddenly starts breathing again. His mouth opens, and his head turns to take in the rest of the room.

It’s - it’s _weird,_ to feel those things happen without Ben wanting them to. It’s like - well, it’s like he’s not in control of his own body, but of course this _isn’t_ his own body. Ben is pretty used to sharing a body with an entity that struggles for dominance whenever it can, but not having 100 percent control is different from having absolutely _zero._

“Oh,” Klaus says softly, voice rasping in the quiet of the room, and then his hand comes up to touch his throat. It doesn’t completely get there, because he aborts the movement halfway and ends up staring at his arm for several seconds. He flexes his fingers - which, considering this is the wrist he bit into, causes a small jolt of pain.

Klaus doesn’t really react to that, and Ben finds that he _can’t._ He can’t - flinch, or move the fingers into a different position, or put the hand down. It’s enough to send a flutter of fear through him. Is he unable to react to pain at all? And -

what the everloving _fuck,_ has Klaus been able to feel his body’s pain _this entire time?_ Has he been suffering and completely paralysed into silence for the past _five days?_

Klaus makes a - sound. It sort of sounds like a laugh, for a very broad definition of ‘laugh.’ It could also be characterized as a sob. Ben is not entirely sure whether it’s voluntary.

‘Klaus?’ Ben says, before he can think better of it.

Instantly, Klaus goes still.

‘....Hey,’ he says after a few seconds.

‘Uh,’ Ben says. ‘Hey. Well, that was pretty easy. Are you - okay?’

‘....Yeah, I guess,’ Klaus says. Ben would probably be more reassured by that if Klaus didn’t _always_ say he was okay, including once after Sam-the-fire-enthusiast bought him for three consecutive nights. ‘I - thanks.’

The fact Klaus is thanking him for giving him control over his own body is actually kind of awful, but Ian isn’t here and thus cannot be introduced to the Horror. Ben pushes the thought away. Klaus probably wouldn’t appreciate it, anyways. ‘Sure. Sorry I didn’t think of it sooner.’

‘Mm,’ Klaus says, and he flexes his uninjured hand. He breathes in deeply, and Ben gets to feel the sensation of inflating lungs that aren’t answerable to him.

Klaus leans forward, and there’s a slight jar as he can’t quite catch himself before he dips a bit too far. Ben tries to fling out his hand to stop himself from falling over. His - Klaus’ - arm manages to catch him, but it doesn’t follow the exact path of Ben’s intentions, and that’s - deeply unnerving.

‘Can you feel the Horror?’ Klaus asks, after a second or two of bracing himself upright.

Ben - doesn’t blink, but would if he were in control. ‘Oh. Um -’

He tries reaching for the Horror. He doesn’t do it often, because there’s always that subtle undercurrent of fear that if he reaches for it, stretches too far, he’ll fall into that other-place it comes from, just like it tries to fall into this plane of reality. But that fear is - _probably_ unfounded, and the whole point of this is to figure out how different states of possession can affect the Horror, so Ben shoves that fear aside and reaches.

It’s - fainter. The Horror is still _there,_ because of course it is, but it’s much fainter than it has been for the past five days. Interestingly enough, it’s not as walled-off as it felt like when he was a ghost, either. It’s sort of like a compromise between the two states. An equilibrium. It’s closer to the surface than it was when he didn’t have a body, but Ben doesn’t think it can get _out._

Ben reports this to Klaus, who shrugs. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Well. That makes sense, I guess.’ Klaus picks at the edge of his blanket, and worries at his lip. ‘So our powers are locked away when we aren’t in the driver’s seat. Then - that means -’

A moan interrupts him.

Klaus snaps his head up, and they see -

Well. Ben supposes that makes sense.

The ghost is a woman, roughly middle-aged. Looks like a car accident. Ben would wince if he had control over Klaus’ eyes.

_Her_ eyes, on the other hand, are fixed inexorably on Klaus.

She moans again, and tilts her head. Klaus seems frozen, staring back at her.

‘Klaus?’ Ben says. ‘Klaus, hey - it’s okay, I don’t - can they even possess you when I’m already here, I don’t think they can? That’s why I even did it in the first place - it’s okay, Klaus, you’re okay -’

The ghost sucks in a rattling, gasping breath, and shuffles forward. She reaches out a mangled hand.

Klaus _flinches,_ and suddenly he’s scrambling back, hitting the headboard, and the movement jars his wrist and the cuts on his chest get tugged the wrong way and there’s a burst of pain nowhere near as bad as it was initially but Ben _can’t even react to it_ and Klaus’ breaths are coming faster now and he’s making a high-pitched whine and leaning on his bad wrist and it _hurts -_

And Ben surges forward, snatches up the reins, takes back control and it’s _easy,_ it’s so easy, it’s like pulling something from an infant’s hand, their grip useless and weak, and Ben is so much stronger than that and there’s barely even enough resistance to speak of and he has _control_ again and the ghost abruptly disappears from his vision but that’s unimportant because he’s checking his wrist and breathing in deeply and pressing down on his chest and _fuck_ does that hurt but he’s okay now, it’s okay, he can fix it now that he’s….

….back….in….control.

Ben blinks. He didn’t even realize he closed his eyes.

No. No, not his eyes. Klaus’ eyes. He took over and he closed Klaus’ eyes.

He took over again. Entirely on instinct, because he was panicking about the pain, because Klaus was starting to freak out and was hurting himself, but he still took over.

….Shit.

‘Klaus?’ Ben says. He blinks a few more times. The ghost is definitely gone, the room as empty as it was before they switched control. ‘Klaus, are you there? Are you okay?’

There’s a few long seconds of silence.

‘....I’m here,’ Klaus says.

‘Oh,’ Ben sags, then winces at the twinge of pain that produces. ‘Oh, that’s good. Uh. Sorry about that.’

The mental message Klaus sends in response is sort of analogous to a shrug, although there’s a probably-unintentional sense of tenseness attached. ‘It’s okay.’

‘Excuse me if I don’t really trust your standards,’ Ben says dryly, then sighs. ‘But - okay. So. Looks like either of our powers only work when we’re in the driver’s seat. And - you can’t see the ghost now, right?’

‘Right,’ Klaus says quietly.

‘And the _passenger_ can only experience the power that the driver is using,’ Ben muses. ‘Huh.’

‘Mm,’ Klaus says.

Ben can sense that he’s losing Klaus, his brother’s tone slipping back into that familiar disinterest. He’s not sure _why,_ but maybe the stress of seeing a hostile ghost again has taken its toll.

‘Alright,’ Ben says. ‘Well, I guess you probably don’t want to see her again right now, but maybe we can switch again in a few hours? It’s going to take some practice so I don’t automatically take over, but - I think I can do it. I think.’

Ben waits patiently for a reply. The seconds tick by on the clock, but he’s waited longer.

But when it comes, it’s not what he’s expecting.

‘....you don’t have to do this,’ Klaus says, voice very small. Maybe as small as it was the first day, when he confirmed Ben was possessing him.

Ben blinks. ‘What?’

‘You don’t have to do this,’ Klaus says, and his voice sounds tight and miserable but strangely steady.

‘Do - what?’ Ben asks.

‘Let me have control. It’s not - it’s okay if you don’t. In fact, I think I’d prefer if you don’t.’

Ben opens his mouth. He closes it.

‘I - what.’ Ben says, brain stuck, frozen in confusion and disbelief. ‘What. I - Klaus, what do you mean? Why don’t you want control?’

‘Of course I want it,’ Klaus says. ‘But it’d just - hurt. Little bits at a time would just - make me miss it more. Best to have a clean cut, right?’

‘Klaus,’ is all Ben can say, ‘Klaus, what are you talking about?’

‘.....it’d just hurt,’ Klaus repeats, a hint of confused patience in his voice. ‘Being in control now and then, here and there. If you’re feeling guilty, don’t be. I’ll be okay, and you can be alive now. Sorry it took so long to get over myself, but my body’s all yours now. Fair and square.’


	15. Chapter 15

There are a lot of times when Klaus doesn’t make sense. When he jumbles up his words and spouts out nonsense, talks about things nobody else can understand. Ben can sometimes follow along, but only by dint of long experience. It’s not unusual for Klaus to spend hours babbling about random topics, jumping from sentence to sentence so quickly he sometimes loses track of it all himself.

That’s the first explanation that jumps to the forefront of Ben’s mind at the moment, hearing Klaus declare that Ben can - _what._

Except - except Klaus is sober now. He isn’t high enough to be lost in the clouds, following a train of logic no one else can see. Ben would have noticed if the doctors started giving him drugs, so why - _why_ is he saying -

Brain injury? That’s a possibility, what with everything Ian subjected him to. But wouldn’t a brain injury affect Ben as well, right now? And the doctors would have probably mentioned it. Wouldn’t they? Some kinds might be hard to catch until later, the head is funny like that.

Except confusion is pretty characteristic of head injuries, isn’t it? God knows Klaus has had more than his fair share, and confusion is a very common symptom. He doesn’t sound confused now, he isn’t making _sense_ but he sounds entirely certain of himself, like he thinks _Ben_ might be confused.

Which - Ben _is_ confused. So maybe he’s just - misunderstanding? Maybe Ben just missed something that will make what Klaus just said make - any kind of sense. At all.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ben says, trying to moderate his tone and act like he has any idea of what is going on. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Hm?’ Klaus says. ‘What?’

‘I think I missed something,’ Ben says. It’s important he stays calm here, if he wants any hope of understanding. ‘What did you just say?’

‘....I don’t want to have control sometimes,’ Klaus repeats. ‘Look, it’s - thanks for trying. But you don’t have to feel guilty, I got over myself. Just go and enjoy living again, okay?’

Ben runs that through his mind a few times. It still doesn’t make sense.

‘I think,’ Ben says, very slowly so he can be sure he’s not speaking in a way that can be misconstrued, ‘I think that we are - talking at cross purposes, here.’

‘...We are?’ Klaus says.

‘Yes,’ Ben says. ‘You aren’t making any sense.’

‘I, uh, think I’m being pretty clear here, bro,’ Klaus says.

 _‘No,’_ Ben disagrees. Vehemently. ‘No, Klaus, you’re not. You’re talking like I’m - like I’m going to just be _keeping_ your body.’

‘....Yeah,’ Klaus says, sounding confused. ‘You are.’

The sheer, blunt _confidence_ in his voice is what renders Ben speechless more than anything. Klaus doesn’t sound at all uncertain about what he’s asserting. It’s an immutable fact of the universe, unchangeable as the stars. _Water is wet. Fire is hot. Ben is keeping my body._

Ben opens and closes his mouth (but it’s not his, it’s _not his, why is Klaus saying it is_ ), but nothing comes out. He can’t speak. He can barely think.

 _‘What,’_ he manages at last, the only sentiment he can convey.

‘Ben?’ Klaus says, a thread of uncertainty finally entering his voice. ‘Are you okay?’

‘No,’ Ben answers, before he can censor himself. Upon second thought, he doesn’t really want to. His mental faculties are recovering, starting to process things again, the most salient being that Klaus apparently thinks Ben is going to be _keeping his fucking body._ ‘No, I am _not_ okay. I’m not - why the _fuck_ would you think that?’

‘That - you’re keeping my body?’ Klaus says. Ben gets the impression that Klaus would be blinking if he had control over his eyes.

 _“Yes!”_ Ben says, then realizes he said it out loud. He focuses on sending his thoughts very pointedly at Klaus. _‘Yes. **That.**_ Why the _fuck_ would you think _that?_ ’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Klaus says, sounding honestly confused now. ‘You want to, don’t you?’

It’s structured like a question, but it’s not spoken as one. Once again, Klaus is talking as if it’s just a fact of life. _Water is wet. Fire is hot. Ben wants to take over my body and life and discard me entirely._

Ben feels Klaus’ jaw hanging open. He seems to be breathing faster than normal. More shallowly. Ben tries bringing up a hand, but it’s shaking for some reason. It falls back down on the bed.

The air is very thick all of a sudden. It’s hard to breathe it in, feels like he’s sitting underwater. Vaguely, Ben wishes for Diego’s powers. Not needing to breathe has always seemed like such a useless power, but it would come in very handy right about now.

“No,” Ben says, only somewhat aware that he’s speaking out loud again. “No, I don’t.”

He means for it to come out forceful, but it feels like he’s just been punched in the gut, so it just sounds very, very faint. Shellshocked.

‘You don’t have to lie, Ben,’ Klaus says, sounding subdued and almost - _gentle._ ‘I know I should’ve let you before, I was just - scared. And selfish. You know how I am. But I won’t - scream all the time, or beg you to leave, or bother you or whatever. I got over myself, and I can live like this alright.’ A pause. ‘I - might want to talk sometimes? But not too much, promise.’

“Stop,” Ben whispers, more out of reflex than any real intent. “Stop. Just stop.”

‘Oh,’ Klaus says, and Ben gets the impression of his brother shrinking back. ‘....Okay. Sorry.’

Then he falls silent.

It takes Ben a couple seconds for his mind to catch up. Then he straightens abruptly, ignoring the twinge from the cuts, and says, ‘Wait. Wait, Klaus, no, I didn’t mean that, _don’t_ go away, _wait._ ’

There’s a few endless, bottomless seconds of silence, enough for the Horror to flutter and twist, enough for Ben’s mind to fill with panic - but then Klaus tentatively says, ‘What?’

‘Klaus,’ Ben says, hearing his brother’s heartbeat pounding in his ears, ‘Klaus, I don’t want to - _take over your body._ I _don’t._ Why would you think that?’

‘....You already have,’ Klaus points out, with the very faintest hint of dryness.

‘To _save_ you!’ Ben says. ‘Because if I didn’t, an entire _hospital’s_ worth of ghosts was going to take you for a joyride! Once we’re out of here of _course_ I’m going to give you your body back, why the fuck would you think I _wouldn’t -_ ’

‘Don’t _**lie!**_ ’

The shout is so unexpected that Ben instantly falls silent, freezing stock-still. Klaus sounds - he sounds more emotional than he has in days, weeks, _months._ There’s more feeling packed into that one word than Ben has seen him express in such a long time, he fails to come up with _any_ comparison.

 _‘Don’t,’_ Klaus hisses, the mental message scraping through their shared skull like sandpaper. ‘Don’t _fucking say that._ I told you, it’s fine, I’m _fine._ I don’t _care_ anymore, it was hard but I _don’t care._ You can have my body and I’ll just _fucking disappear_ and you can _live._ I know you want to, you _all fucking want to,_ and everyone else would just hurt people but you _won’t_ so it’s _okay._ I know it took way too long and it’s all fucked up by now but I was _scared_ , I’m _sorry_ but _you can live now._ ’

There’s a ringing silence that follows his words.

Ben stares blankly at the wall opposite him. It’s - he doesn’t know whether it’s Klaus’ words or the sheer _intensity_ they’re spoken with that’s making him stall. His mind is frozen, just spitting out echoes of Klaus’ outburst, broken snippets of _I don’t care anymore_ and _I’ll just disappear_ and _you all want to_ and _I’m sorry._

‘It’s yours, though,’ is all he can say. ‘Your body. It’s _yours._ ’

A sound that might just qualify as a tired, cynical laugh. ‘It hasn’t been mine since I was _eight,_ Ben.’

The words sit there between them, tall and ugly and inescapable. Ben stares at nothing, all his attention focused inward.

‘But,’ Ben says, reaching, grasping, searching for some way to refute Klaus’ utter certainty. ‘But you - you’re so careful to keep it, to prevent ghosts possessing you. You haven’t been sober in years, you do _everything_ to stop possession, you _stayed with Ian_ to prevent possession. If you really didn’t think your body belongs to you, why would you fight so hard to keep it?’

‘Didn’t you pay attention?’ Klaus says impatiently. ‘They want to hurt people, Ben. They want to hurt people like they were hurt, and I can’t let that happen. This way _I’m_ the only one getting hurt.’

Ben _flinches_ at that. ‘How do you know that?’ he demands, panic bleeding into his thoughts. ‘How do you know they _all_ want to hurt people - that they all _would_ hurt people? Surely they can’t _all -_ ’

‘I almost murdered Diego.’

The words are flat, blunt, spoken without any emotion at all. They hit Ben like a falling building, crashing down and pinning him, helpless.

‘....what?’

‘I almost murdered Diego,’ Klaus repeats, still flat and far too calm. ‘We were twelve, and I got possessed a couple nights after that mission with the paintings. Diego killed a guy on that mission, remember? The ghost possessed me, and forced my door open, and if Mom hadn’t found me he would have killed Diego. She woke me up and I was outside Diego’s room and _I had a knife in my hand, Ben._ ’

Ben cannot seem to breathe properly.

‘When Mom woke me up, he was there,’ Klaus says. ‘The ghost, he was right there. He told me what he was going to do. He told me he was going to wait until I was vulnerable again, and he’d possess me and force his way out of my room, and he’d kill Diego. He’d kill the rest of you, too. He really didn’t like us. None of the ghosts liked us, Ben, we _killed_ all of them. So -’

For the first time, Klaus hesitates.

‘So,’ he says, subdued, ‘It was - it was either me or you guys. And that was a pretty easy choice.’

Something tickles at the edge of Ben’s memory. It’s a small thing, just one little fact. He isn’t even sure, at first, why it presents itself to his attention.

And then -

then it hits.

‘You,’ Ben says. ‘You only - you only started drugs after you fell down the stairs.’

‘I didn’t fall, Ben,’ Klaus says. Tiredly. Easily.

Ben is very, very cold, for some reason. Everything is all very distant, and he’s sure if he were feeling anything right now he wouldn’t be able to reply. But for some reason all his emotions are buried under miles and miles of glass, too far away to impact him.

‘You tried to kill yourself,’ Ben says.

‘Yeah,’ Klaus says.

‘You tried to kill yourself when we were twelve,’ Ben says. ‘Because you didn’t want to hurt us. Because you were being possessed.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh.’ Ben says.

He thinks he should feel surprised. Except - hasn’t he seen, more than once, what Klaus will do to avoid being possessed? Hasn’t he seen his brother drug himself, sell himself, stab himself, _try to kill himself,_ all because of possession?

The surprise here, Ben thinks distantly, is that he didn’t put it together before.

‘I didn’t want to possess you, Klaus,’ Ben says. He thinks - he thinks it’s probably important that Klaus understand this, but he’s not sure Klaus _will._ He thinks he will probably be misunderstood, or disbelieved.

He thinks he needs to try anyways.

‘I didn’t,’ Ben repeats. ‘I did it to prevent other ghosts from possessing you. I didn’t, and still don’t, intend to keep possessing you after we get released from the hospital.’

‘Can you _stop?_ ’ Klaus says - demands, really. But instead of angry, he just sounds tired. ‘I told you. I don’t mind anymore.’

‘Is that what you’ve been doing these past few days?’ Ben wonders. ‘Forcing yourself to accept that I’m going to steal your body?’

‘I don’t think it counts as stealing if it’s public property, but yes. And it worked, so just - you don’t have to feel guilty, okay? I told you, I’ll be alright.’

‘I don’t think you would be,’ Ben says. ‘And of course I’m feeling guilty. I’ve felt guilty ever since I started possessing you, and I’d feel even worse if I intended on - _keeping_ you. How could you think I would do that, Klaus?’

 _‘Please,’_ Klaus says. 'Please don’t pretend like you haven’t thought about it.’

‘I -’ Ben hesitates. He swallows. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I thought about it. And I fucking hated myself for that, Klaus. I never let myself think about it again, _never._ I’ve seen how scared you are of possession, I _know_ what it does to you. I’d never want to hurt you like that, _god._ ’

Silence. Ben stays still, eyes fixed ahead. He tries to move his borrowed body as little as possible, letting the seconds spool out.

‘.....why?’

Ben blinks. ‘What?’

‘Why?’ Klaus says, almost desperately. ‘Why do you care if you hurt me?’

Ben very nearly recoils. ‘Wh- you’re my _brother!_ ’

‘And? You don’t love me.’

Once again, Ben is speechless. Vaguely, he realizes that he’s stopped breathing, and Klaus’ jaw is hanging open.

‘No,’ he says, very faintly, ‘No, I do. Of course I do, Klaus.’

There is silence again.

‘..... _please_ don’t lie, Ben,’ Klaus says, voice quieter than anything he’s said before.

‘I’m not,’ Ben says, and he starts breathing again, sound bleeding back into the world, color reasserting itself. ‘I’m not, Klaus, I’m not lying, of course I love you, of course I do, you’re my brother, why the _hell_ would you think that? Why do you think I’ve stayed with you - what the fuck, did you think I stayed with you for a chance to possess you? Is that what you thought?’

‘You admitted it!’ Klaus says, sounding distressed and very much like he’d be crying if he had control over his eyes. ‘You _admitted_ it, Ben, don’t fucking pretend you didn’t!’

‘When did I admit it?’ Ben demands, feeling hysteria rise inside of him. ‘When the fuck did I admit it, Klaus?’

‘The first day,’ Klaus says. ‘The first day, right before you possessed me, you _told me._ Don’t _lie._ ’

Ben blinks. ‘What -’

And - he remembers -

_"If I'm so stupid and selfish, why haven't you left yet? If I never change, if what I'm doing is so bad, if my life is so **horrible** to you, then **why are you still here!** "_

_"You **fucking know why!** "_

It feels like a punch to the gut, a slap in the face. It feels like all the air is sucked out of the room, leaving him breathless and limp.

‘No,’ he says again. ‘No, Klaus, I didn’t mean it like that.’

A half-laugh, half-snarl. ‘Sure. Sure you didn’t, Ben.’

‘I meant because you’re my brother, Klaus!’ Ben snaps. ‘I meant I don’t want to leave you, because even if it hurts to see people hurting you I don’t want you to be alone! I _meant_ that _I love you!_ '

‘Shut _up!_ ’ Klaus shouts. ‘Shut up, shut up, you’re lying, you’re _lying,_ you don’t -’

‘I _do,_ Klaus -’ Ben says, and fuck, Klaus is sounding increasingly hysterical, voice rising, and Ben scrambles for a way to convince him, searching, reaching -

‘No, no, no, you don’t, you _don’t,_ you’re _lying,_ shut up, shut up, get out, get out, please please no no nononononopleasepleasepleasegetoutgetoutnono _please -_ ’

“I swear on Five!” Ben blurts.

The words drop on them like a bomb, and Klaus breaks off, stunned.

‘I swear on Five,’ Ben says hurriedly, before Klaus can fall into babbling again. ‘I swear I’m telling the truth, I never wanted to possess you, I _didn’t,_ I stayed with you because I love you and no other reason, and I _do_ love you, I do, you’re my brother, I _swear_ I’m telling the truth and I swear it on Five.’

There

is

absolute

silence.

Ben holds his breath, and stares straight ahead. Five is - they never talk about Five. No one does. They don’t know if he’s dead and moved on, or lost in time, or _anything._ They just _don’t know._ And they - they never bring him up lightly. He’s the first one lost, forever a child in their memories, and apparently Klaus thinks Ben would debase _him_ but none of them would ever do that to Five.

Ben holds his breath, and -

‘.....oh.’

That’s it. Just _oh._

But Ben hears it as the first victory he’s made since he died.


	16. Chapter 16

It isn’t as easy as that, of course.

Because Klaus has spent most of his life convinced that every single ghost wants to possess him, that it’s the one thing on their minds, that none of them care about _him_ at all. Ben - Ben might have been indignant about that, but he’s forced to admit that excluding him, that’s all _true,_ so there’s not a particularly strong reason Klaus would believe he’s any different.

He’s also forced to admit that his behavior over the past couple years _probably_ hasn’t helped with that impression. The Hargreeveses have never been very capable of much open affection. They couldn’t, not with the ever-present monocle of their father scrutinizing their every move, glaring in disapproval whenever they were anything other than perfect soldiers (or perfectly invisible, in the case of Vanya). Being caring and affectionate towards each other was something to be hidden, carefully concealed under innocuous actions or quick smiles.

But subterfuge always was a bit of a foreign language for Klaus. Even concealing that he can be possessed was more a case of no one ever thinking to _ask_ than any great effort on his part. So, looking back, it is…. _maybe_ a little easy to understand why Klaus would think Ben was staying around out of first obligation, and then a desire to possess him.

Ben - Ben always thought it was just….obvious. Of course he loves Klaus. The fact that he’s almost perpetually frustrated with him, that he’s angry with him, that he might even hate him sometimes - none of that could _ever_ change that fact that he loves his brother. He thought that went without saying.

That’s a dangerous assumption, he’s learned.

But the fact that they’re in telepathic contact with each other now may as well be useful for _something._ So they talk. A lot.

It’s difficult and irritating and sometimes painful, but they don’t really have anything _else_ to do, and they both know they need to clear the air. Exactly how _much_ air needs to be cleared comes as a surprise to them both, but then again no member of the Umbrella Academy could ever do things halfway.

_Apparently,_ Klaus was terrified of telling Ben about possession after his death, because he was sure Ben would want to make use of it. Ben’s incessant nagging about sobriety and taking care of his body (and Ben winces to remember he actually did phrase it like that, fuck) only unintentionally fed the fire. And after Ben found out, Klaus took his suggestion to train it as a ploy to get him sober so Ben could possess him. He was never quite sure how much Ben cared about him, but he was always very sure it couldn’t compare to the prospect of having a body again.

It also comes as an extremely unpleasant surprise to hear that Klaus more or less considers the things his customers did to him as _necessary._

‘It’s like - a car, I guess,’ Klaus explains, and Ben would interrupt him but he’s kind of frozen in disbelief. ‘My body’s all beat up and - _used,_ so it’s not as, y’know, enticing. I mean, that was probably always doomed to failure, considering it’s the _only_ car ghosts can use, but I guess I thought maybe if I just made it disgusting enough they wouldn’t be able to stand driving it. Fuck, _I_ can hardly stand it sometimes - oh jesus christ, Ben, don’t throw up, I don’t want to feel that.’

Ben does not throw up. It takes a lot of breathing, and forced calm, and eventually just shoving Klaus in control, but they do not throw up.

Klaus takes the opportunity to flex his fingers again, curling and uncurling his toes. Ben has been giving him control as often as he can, but ghosts always start congregating after a few minutes and Klaus still can’t stay very calm when that happens. But it’s helping Klaus believe that Ben really will keep his word about returning his body, so Ben is entirely willing to only take over when Klaus shoves the reins back at him.

‘I’m a little surprised, actually,’ Klaus admits, tilting his head. ‘You know better than anyone what I’ve put this thing through, and you haven’t mentioned it once. Weren’t you a bit more squeamish than that, dear brother?’

Ben can’t _physically_ flinch right now, but he does the mental equivalent. ‘I….’ he says, trailing off and thinking over his response. ‘I hate what your customers did to you, Klaus. I fucking hate it, and I hate them, and the fact that you _let_ them makes me kind of pissed off at you as well. But I hate it because _you got hurt,_ not because of anything else.’

‘....huh,’ Klaus says. He flutters his eyes closed. ‘You know, it wasn’t - I didn’t _always_ hate it. Some of it was fun. Sex _can_ be fun, you know.’

‘Can we please stop talking about you having sex,’ Ben says, rather than get into an argument about how much of Klaus’ enjoyment was a coping mechanism and that being tortured wasn’t _fun._

‘Oh, right,’ Klaus says, his mouth quirking up to the side, ‘I forgot, you died a _virgin._ Oh, hey, that reminds me, I made up a joke. If a virgin and a slut are sharing a body, then -’

‘Don’t,’ Ben says, before he can stop himself.

‘Hm?’ Klaus says.

‘Don’t call yourself that,’ Ben says. ‘I - you did it to survive, that’s all. I know people have said that to you before but - you’re not. Okay? Don’t call yourself that.’

‘- okay,’ Klaus says, sounding a little bemused. ‘Fine. Well, if a virgin and a whore are sharing a body -’

‘That either.’

‘What?’ Klaus blinks. ‘Seriously, Ben -’

‘Look, just humor me, okay?’ Ben interrupts. ‘Just don’t call yourself any of those things, you don’t have to care about it but I do and I’m asking you not to and just _please,_ Klaus.’

‘Oh, for - _fine,_ ’ Klaus says, exasperated. ‘If a virgin and a _prostitute_ are sharing a body, then….wait, I forgot the rest. _Dammit,_ Ben!’

Ben isn’t entirely broken up about ruining the joke. The list of Things Klaus Is Not Allowed To Do Or Say gains another couple items.

(Ben has been composing this list for the past several days. He had a rudimentary version of it before, but he was never able to actually _enforce_ it so he never really paid it much attention. Now, however, he has a limited window of effectiveness and _he will take advantage while he can._ )

Klaus has to give Ben control again when he attracts yet another posse of ghosts, but he remains in a reasonably good mood. Ben is happy about that, and listens as Klaus continues talking about going to his favorite diner once he’s released.

He’s trying to explain himself more, now. Klaus was very surprised to hear that most of Ben’s frustration with him stems from watching him being hurt for so long, and while Ben can’t exactly say he’s _not_ mad at Klaus for doing stupid and dangerous things, he’s learned to explain the very important difference between being angry because of scorn and being angry because of fear. The distinction is a _bit_ critical.

Klaus still doesn’t _entirely_ trust that Ben is willing to give him his body back. Ben works hard not to take offense at that. Anyone else, he reminds himself, genuinely _wouldn’t_ do it, and Klaus has known that on a very visceral level for well over a decade. The fact that Ben has the benefit of the doubt is a testament to Klaus’ faith in him.

So when a doctor comes in twenty minutes later and informs them she’s here to discuss release options, both Ben and Klaus focus on her, poised on the edge of their metaphorical seat.

“Now, you’ve been here for a week and a half,” she says, looking through the file in her hands. She glances up and gives them a smile. “You’re healing well, and you made it through detox alright. I understand you’ve been asking about being released.”

“Yeah,” Ben says, measuring his words. It’s still weird to hear himself speaking in Klaus’ voice. “I know they want to keep me under observation because of my - fit, but I really do feel better.”

“Not just because of your attempt, Klaus,” the doctor says, keeping her expression gently neutral. “But also because you suffered a very traumatic experience. It’s _entirely_ normal to need counseling after what you’ve been through. I know it’s probably hard for you to believe, but we really do only want to help you.”

Ben shifts uncomfortably on the bed. Klaus is uncharacteristically quiet in the back of his mind.

‘No commentary?’ he can’t help but ask. ‘I thought you’d at least laugh.’

‘The thought of anyone actually thinking they can deal with all my _many_ issues is indeed hilarious,’ Klaus agrees, although his voice is subdued. ‘But I just - don’t want to stay here.’

‘Okay,’ Ben says. ‘Okay.’

“I understand,” he says aloud, looking the doctor in the eye. He still marvels at how her eyes don’t pass through him without pause, how she waits for him to speak. “I do, really. But that’s not really how I - process. It’s hard for me to feel safe here, with all these people around. If I’m capable of leaving, that’s what I want to do.”

The doctor stays quiet for a few seconds, before sighing. “Well, I suppose I can understand that. If you really want to leave, I’d say you’ll be stable enough by tomorrow, or the following day at the latest. Do you have a place to go?”

“Sure,” Ben lies.

“Oh, right,” the doctor says, frowning in remembrance. “One of the nurses mentioned calling your family. Well, that’s good, you’ll need all the support you can -”

“What,” Ben says.

The doctor breaks off and blinks at him. “Hm?”

“I didn’t call my family,” Ben says, blinking. He can almost feel Klaus reeling in confusion. “Who said that?”

“I,” the doctor says, surprised. “Ah - Nurse Tallis, I think, she’s the one who changes your bandages. She said she called your family yesterday and spoke to your father?”

Ben stares at her.

“....You didn’t know that,” the doctor observes, looking at his face.

Ben opens his mouth, and closes it.

Very faintly, he can hear a small whine coming from the back of his mind.

“I,” Ben says. “No. No, I - what did he say. What did - no, wait, you know what, I don’t care. I don’t care what the fuck he said. I’m leaving. What do I need to sign to leave right now?”

The doctor straightens in alarm. “I can’t advise leaving right now -”

“I don’t care,” Ben snaps. He pushes the blankets off himself, and starts up a chant of ‘it’s okay, it’s okay, Klaus, it’s okay,’ inside his head. “I’m leaving _now,_ because apparently your staff has as much of a sense of privacy as my _last_ accommodations. If you want to stop me from leaving you’re _entirely_ welcome to tie me down.” _Or die trying,_ he doesn’t add, because the Horror is twisting inside his stomach and he’s having a hell of a time remembering why he shouldn’t let it free.

He might as well have slapped her. The doctor’s face goes bone-white, and the file tears in her hands where she’s suddenly gripping it much too tightly. She swallows, hard.

“No,” she says, and under other circumstances he would be impressed with how steady her voice is. “That won’t be necessary. If you could just follow me, I’ll get the checkout paperwork.”

_“Great,”_ Ben says, and he stands for the first time since possessing Klaus.

He has to grab onto the railing of the bed to stay steady. His legs are suddenly much too shaky. Ben shifts, and nearly falls over. What the fuck, goddammit, how do people walk on actually physical legs again?

‘Klaus,’ he says desperately. ‘Klaus, can you take over? I don’t think they’ll let me walk out of here if I can’t actually walk.’

There’s silence for a few seconds, and Ben starts to think he’ll probably have to relearn how to walk all by himself, but then there’s a sort of shudder in the back of his mind and Klaus says, ‘Yeah. Yeah, I can.’

He creeps forward, and Ben easily hands off control. It’s simple enough now, just a small mental twist. Of course, taking _back_ control is even easier, but Ben has no intention of doing that when it would probably send them face-first into the floor.

Klaus stumbles slightly as he gains control, swaying against the bed. The doctor eyes him warily, and Klaus takes a moment to breathe.

But not too long. Ben feels his brother lift up his head and give her a small smile. “Alright,” Klaus chirps, letting go of the bed and moving forward. “Paperwork. Glorious paperwork. Best thing. Where is it?’

“....This way,” the doctor sighs, walking out the door.

‘I’m impressed,’ Ben comments, trying to distract himself and Klaus from the thought of _Dad knows where we are._ ‘It usually takes at least _two_ times meeting you to produce that kind of sigh.’

‘Well, most of her interaction has been with you, so it’s understandable that it’d come earlier,’ Klaus says solemnly. Then, more quietly, ‘....How did she know who I am? I never gave them my last name.’

‘....The tattoo,’ Ben says wearily, the answer coming easily. Because, of course, it always comes down to that _fucking_ tattoo. ‘She changes your bandages, she would have seen it close up. Even if she wasn’t a fan, Vanya’s book describes it perfectly.’

‘Oh,’ Klaus says, moving his hand to touch the bandages on his left wrist.

“Here you go,” the doctor says, pulling them out of their thoughts. Klaus blinks at the papers she’s holding out, and takes them, along with a proffered pen. Gingerly, he sits down and looks them over. The doctor goes behind the desk and picks up the phone.

It takes a couple minutes to figure out where to sign, but then Klaus finishes with a flourish and hands it back. Wordlessly, the doctor hands him a sweatshirt and pants and points to a bathroom.

Getting dressed is hardly a blip on the radar. If Ben hadn’t grown used to seeing _all_ of his brother’s body over the past eight and a half years, he would certainly have grown inured over the past week and a half of actually inhabiting it. Honestly, the most distressing thing about getting dressed is that Klaus keeps forgetting he shouldn’t use his wrist too much, and the constant twinges of pain make Ben forcefully hold himself back from taking control again.

Klaus exits the bathroom. There are a few ghosts congregating, and they start sending him glances that hold a spark of recognition. Ben - well, he isn’t in control of Klaus’ eyes, so he can’t eye them warily, but he uneasily thinks to himself that they should probably leave soon. Or now.

Klaus returns the hospital gown to the doctor, carefully avoiding looking at the ghosts. He gives a smile that’s probably only 85% fake, although Ben is better at gauging that sort of thing from the outside.

“Well,” he says. “Off I go. Thank you for the accommodations, really, the food was excellent, the service averaged adequate, and the decor was subpar. Might want to look into that. _Adios!_ ”

“Goodbye,” the doctor says, taking the gown. She glances up at them. “I reported Nurse Tallis. She’s likely going to be fired. I - also spoke to her, and she says your father - isn’t likely to come. Although there was a butler who sounded concerned?”

“Oh, I never expected him to _come,_ ” Klaus says breezily. Ben mentally snorts at the idea of Reginald Hargreeves deigning to step foot in a public hospital for the sake of his ‘disappointment’ of a son. “I’m just completely against the idea of contact with him in any shape or form. Though it’s nice to hear Pogo cares. Toodles!”

He spins on his heel, staggers, rights himself, and marches out the door.

Once outside, Klaus takes a deep breath. The city air fills up his lungs, and Ben relishes it. He’s not going to be able to for much longer, and even if breathing isn’t _all_ upside he thinks he’s still going to miss it.

Klaus picks a direction probably at random, and starts walking. He attracts a few glances, but not overly many. Fewer than he did a year ago.

Speaking of a year ago….

Ben sighs mentally. He’s been purposefully avoiding thinking of what Klaus is going to do once they leave the hospital. It’s - it’s not like he’s going back to Ian, Ben tries to reassure himself. It’s just - going back to normal. Not the best life, not even a _decent_ one, really, but it’s the best he can manage.

Ben’s learned to take what he can get.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, Klaus stops at a park. It’s small, and mostly deserted. He plops down on a bench, and speaks to Ben for the first time since leaving the hospital.

‘You there, Benny?’ Klaus asks.

‘Yeah,’ Ben sighs. ‘Not for much longer, though. I - do you want me to stick around until you can find a score, or should I leave now?’

Klaus stays quiet. He breathes out, slow and steady. He tilts his head back, and looks up at the sky.

Ben lets his brother think. There are a lot fewer ghosts here, away from the hospital. Only a couple are within eyeline, and they hardly seem to notice Klaus. It’s a good place to think.

Looking down again, Klaus picks at the bandage around his wrist. Ben mentally winces as he peels back an edge, enough to look at the wound underneath.

It’s healing well, at least. It’s pretty obviously a _bite_ wound, which Ben is sure will invite a lot of weird looks and probing questions from future customers. The scar actually goes through Klaus’ tattoo, and the umbrella looks like it was cut in half. That probably has some sort of symbolism, Ben is pretty sure.

‘I think….’ Klaus says.

He trails off, and Ben waits. After another minute, he gives the mental equivalent of a nudge.

‘You think what?’ he asks.

Klaus smooths down the bandages, and looks back up at the sky.

‘I think,’ he says slowly, like he’s testing the words. ‘I might be open to another option.’


	17. Chapter 17

‘You want me to keep possessing you,’ Ben says flatly.

‘I think it could work out,’ Klaus says, picking over his words.

The sun is shining down, not a cloud in the sky. It’s a moderately temperate day, and Ben lost track of the date a while ago but he’s pretty sure it’s almost June. So there’s no reason he should be feeling as cold as he is.

‘Klaus,’ Ben says, trying to hold onto his patience. ‘I told you. I’m not taking your body. I promised you, and I’m not going to break it. I know you don’t fully trust me about that, but -’

‘Not taking,’ Klaus interrupts, shifting on the bench. ‘I mean - we could share it. Like we’ve been doing these past few days. You keep possessing me, and we just - trade off who’s in control.’

‘What.’ Ben says. Seriously. What.

Klaus bites at his lip. ‘I think it could work out,’ he repeats.

‘I,’ Ben says. ‘I, no, wait. Klaus, you hate being possessed. You cannot _possibly_ be okay with that.’

Klaus huffs a little, and oh, Ben knows that sound. That’s the _come on, Ben, keep up already_ sound. The _why are you being so dense_ sound. Ben finds himself instantly annoyed at it, because he’s never liked hearing it, but especially because Klaus has no goddamn right to make that sound _now,_ of all times.

‘Klaus, if you say you _got over it,_ I will take control and make you smack yourself in the face,’ Ben says.

‘Kinky,’ Klaus says, and Ben barely resists the urge to make good on his threat. But then Klaus sighs, and his tone changes to a more serious one. ‘Look, Ben. I’m not - I’m not totally okay with it. You’re right. But you were also right before.’

‘Before?’ Ben says, caught off-guard. He tries to remember the last time Klaus ever admitted he was right, and comes up blank. ‘Right about what?’

‘I’m not okay _now,_ ’ Klaus says, with a sort of frank honesty Ben has _never_ heard from him. ‘You keep saying I’m driving myself into an early grave, that it’s a miracle I’ve lived this long. And you’re right. It’s pure luck I’m not dead yet - well, luck and you. Thanks for all that, by the way.’

‘Uh, sure,’ Ben says, still stunned, and wondering if Klaus has been possessed by another, much more mature, ghost. Ben would have noticed that, right?

‘But anyways,’ Klaus says. He starts picking at one of his fingernails. ‘What I mean is - like you said, I’m a homeless junkie wh-prostitute. It’s not really much of a life. I’ve stayed that way because - well, for one, it would just be too much work to do anything else, but mostly because of the risk of possession. But if that got taken care of, I think….I think I could try to be something else.’

‘And as long as I’m possessing you,’ Ben says slowly, ‘No one else can.’

‘Yeah,’ Klaus says, and Ben feels his lips quirk up slightly. ‘Exactly.’

Ben sits in the back of Klaus’ mind, stunned. He goes over what Klaus is offering. A partnership. Equal control. And in return - in _return -_

‘You’re offering to stay sober,’ Ben says, just to make sure he’s understanding his brother correctly. ‘You’re saying - you want to stay _sober._ That you want to stop selling yourself, and sleeping in alleyways, and letting people hurt you whenever they want. You want to try all of that. Really try.’

‘You know,’ Klaus muses, flexing his hand open and closed, looking at the _hello_ tattooed there. ‘I think I do.’

Ben’s mind is spinning. He can’t believe this. He never - _never_ expected this. He resigned himself long ago to the fact that he’d watch his brother die some day, either by overdose or getting beaten to death by someone who didn’t even see him as a person. He resigned himself to following Klaus around, watching him get raped and tortured and brutalized, stuffing himself with drugs until he didn’t care. He resigned himself to the fact that he could never, _ever_ help, could never make things better, could never save his brother.

And now -

now he has a _chance._

‘Okay,’ Ben whispers. ‘Okay. That sounds - good, Klaus. That sounds pretty good.’

Klaus’ mouth curls upwards into a smile, and Ben doesn’t even have to see it to know it’s a real one.

‘Alright,’ Klaus says. ‘Well then. Let’s give it a shot.’

**********

‘I don’t think _either_ of us is qualified to be around children,’ Klaus says dubiously, looking at the flyer advertising an open position at a daycare.

‘God no,’ Ben says. ‘I meant the one next to that. The dishwasher position.’

‘Ew.’

‘We can’t really afford to be choosy, Klaus,’ Ben reminds him.

‘I knoooww,’ Klaus sighs, and pulls off one of the tabs with a number on it. ‘Ugh, who ever expected getting a job when you’re a homeless junkie ex-childhood-superhero former prostitute would be this hard?’

‘Don’t forget recently released from the hospital,’ Ben adds dryly. ‘And I think you can put a ‘former’ in front of the junkie description as well, you’re doing pretty good about that.’

‘It’s only been two and a half weeks,’ Klaus says idly, walking out of the store before the clerk eyeing him can call the cops. ‘And most of that time was spent in the hospital.’

‘Still,’ Ben says. ‘You’ve stayed sober on your own for a week already. That’s pretty impressive, considering.’

‘You’ve had to take over to prevent me from going for drugs three times.’

‘Well, mostly on your own,’ Ben amends. ‘What matters is that you’re still sober, and still trying.’

‘For now,’ Klaus mutters. ‘But we can’t live off scraps forever, Benny. I’m used to starving, but you aren’t.’

Ben would wince if he had control. It’s true that Ben has had some trouble adjusting to the physical strain of being homeless. The cold nights, the aching feet, the gnawing hunger….Ben didn’t know how good he had it, back in the hospital.

But he pushes that all away. They need to focus on the matter at hand.

‘Well, then, we’d better call that number,’ he says.

Ben pulls forward a little bit, indicating he wants control. Klaus stops walking, and hesitates. Ben waits patiently, not pushing, not forcing him - just waiting. Klaus always hesitates before handing over control. Understandably.

After a few seconds, Klaus hands over his body. Ben doesn’t comment. The only way to make Klaus completely okay with this arrangement is time. Time and patience.

He blinks, and breathes in. Whenever they hand off control, it’s hard not to spend a second reveling in the freedom of actually being able to move when they want. Sparing a moment to bat back the Horror (it isn’t particularly pushy, just gently teasing at the edges of it’s newly instantiated portal. Ben suspects that if it’s capable of feeling curiosity, that’s what it feels toward how the portal seems to vanish and reappear at random), he looks around for a payphone.

They’ve agreed that Ben should do the talking to potential employers, because even though he’s barely spoken to anyone for the better part of a decade at least he isn’t going to automatically offer a blowjob at the end of the interview (‘I’m _sorry,_ okay, it just slipped out!’). Ben ambles over to the payphone and grimaces when he remembers how much - or, rather, how little - change they have.

Klaus is probably thinking along the same lines as he is, because he can feel his brother sigh in the back of his mind. ‘Here’s hoping,’ he says.

‘Yep,’ Ben says back, before dialing.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the job has already been filled. Which is pretty much typical of their luck nowadays. Ben hangs up the phone and resists the urge to punch the wall of the building next to him. He needs to remember that doing so would break Klaus’ knuckles, instead of sailing harmlessly through the brick. There’s still a piece of cloth wrapped around Klaus’ wrist, the wound healing but still prone to twinging now and again.

‘Well, that was a big ol’ waste of time!’ Klaus says cheerfully. ‘So what next, o fearless leader? That restaurant over on sixth is bound to have a good dinner selection. If we get there fast, the trash will still be warm.’

Ben carefully does not wince. ‘Alright,’ he sighs.

It’s getting dark out, the sun already halfway below the horizon. Ben checks the alleys as they pass by out of habit. They have a usual place, but if finding food takes longer than expected they’ll probably have to sleep elsewhere rather than risk travelling back. After eight and a half years, they know which parts of the city to avoid (well, before Ian, Klaus actively went to them, but _now_ they’re places to be avoided), but it’s never _completely_ safe to walk around at night.

He crosses the street, and glances around again. Right, so sixth is only a couple blocks away, but Ben can’t remember if Terry-the-psychopath hangs around the Target on _seventh_ or _seventeenth._ He thinks it’s the latter, but when it comes to Terry it’s better safe than sorry. Ben is still _entirely_ unconvinced he was joking about cutting out Klaus’ tongue.

Ben is just debating the merits of making a detour to the restaurant when Klaus makes a small noise in the back of his mind. ‘Hey,’ his brother says. ‘Help Wanted sign.’

‘Where?’ Ben looks around.

‘That little store over there, with the awning.’

Ben focuses on the store, and sees that there is indeed a sign in the window. He ambles up and peers at it, then at the lettering on the door.

 _“Gaia’s Glade,”_ he reads aloud. “Wiccan and Witchcraft Supply Store.” He pauses. ‘Seriously?’

‘Hey, it’s work.’

Ben can’t really argue with that, so he enters the store without any further protests.

Inside, the lights are at half-brightness. It’s probably supposed to give off a mystical, mysterious look, but Ben thinks it gives off more of the impression that they can’t pay electricity. Shelves are arranged in a pattern that might have spiritual significance, or maybe because the employees just couldn’t be bothered to arrange them neatly. The air is thick with the smell of herbs and spices, with a hint of wood smoke.

‘I love it,’ Klaus declares gleefully.

‘Of course you do,’ Ben says, rolling his eyes. He approaches the counter.

The woman working is Goth. Not just goth, but Goth. Her hair is bottle-black and choppily cut, edging into dark purple at the tips. Her clothes are ripped and worn, with nary a hint of color anywhere. Klaus coos at her glossy black nailpolish, and she has enough tattoos, piercings, and kohl that Ben is genuinely uncertain if he’d recognize her without it all.

“Ah,” Ben says. “I noticed the Help Wanted sign?”

She gives him the flattest look he’s ever seen, and he lived with _Five_ for thirteen years.

‘Ben,’ Klaus says. ‘Let me do the talking. These are my _people._ ’

‘If you ever dressed like that we would all drop dead of secondhand embarrassment,’ Ben says. But he has to admit that this is probably not his area of expertise. So reluctantly, he hands control back to Klaus. ‘ _Don’t_ offer sex,’ he warns.

‘One time. That was _one time._ ’

‘Because I didn’t allow there to be a second time,’ Ben grumbles, but Klaus is already smiling brilliantly at the girl.

“Which I thought meant _you_ wanted help,” Klaus says, “but clearly you must have meant _I_ am in dire need of help from _you._ You _must_ tell me where you got that shade, it looks gorgeous. Did you paint them yourself?”

A flicker of surprise races across the girl’s face, and she glances at her nails. “Yeah,” she says, and a hint of actual warmth is present in her tone. “You like?”

“Duh,” Klaus says, leaning forward to peer at her nails. “Oh, wow, you didn’t even touch the cuticles. How long did it _take?_ ”

“Too long,” the girl says. “But it was worth it.”

“Sure was,” Klaus says admiringly. “Chip-proof?”

“Obviously. Waterproof, too. Medea’s Polish, they make the best quality stuff. This one’s called Midnight Tears.”

“Consider me converted,” Klaus says.

Ben watches with no small amount of disbelief as Klaus charms the girl until she’s openly grinning at him. It’s not like he doesn’t _know_ Klaus can be charismatic when he wants to, but it’s always weird to see him getting people to like him so easily. Even weirder is possessing him while he does it, so it’s almost as if the girl is smiling at _him._ Ben has to remind himself that she isn’t aware of Klaus’ hitchhiking ghost brother staring back at her.

“Sure,” the girl is saying. “I have an application right here. But - hm,” she bites her lip and shoots Klaus a sideways glance. “Actually, my manager is in the back. How about I go get her, and you can have an interview right now?”

“Really?” Klaus puts his hands to his cheeks and grins at her. “Oh, wow, _thank_ you. You’re an angel, Klara.”

“Hey now, no need for name-calling,” Klara wags a finger at Klaus, grinning right back, before disappearing into the back of the store.

‘How the fuck do you do that,’ Ben says.

‘Do what?’ Klaus says, with entirely too much innocence.

 _‘That,’_ Ben says, not in the mood for games.

‘Dunno,’ Klaus says, shrugging. ‘I just talked to her. And looked at her. Which, okay, I _guess_ has an impact on people.’

‘Ah,’ Ben says. He hardly even noticed that Klaus was really _looking_ at Klara, but he supposes that would do the trick. It really is something, to be on the receiving end of all of Klaus’ attention.

They’re distracted by Klara coming back out with a middle-aged woman. She’s a bit on the heavier side, and there are a myriad of tiny trinkets and ribbons woven into her dreadlocks. She looks at Klaus and raises an eyebrow.

“You’re here about the job?” she asks.

“Sure am!” Klaus chirps.

“Well,” she levels him a look. “Klara here got you an interview. Let’s go back to my office.”

They follow her into the back, Klaus waving goodbye to Klara. She looks deeply impressed with his palm tattoo.

“I’m Andrea Hall,” the woman calls back, as they navigate through a crowded hallway. Boxes of merchandise are piled almost to the ceiling, and Ben has the nagging feeling that it will all fall on top of them and they’ll be buried. Klaus doesn’t seem to share that fear, considering how he ambles along after Andrea.

Andrea leads them into a small office, and pulls out a chair. She sits behind her desk and looks at them - or, well, at Klaus.

“Name?” she says.

“Klaus,” Klaus says cheerfully. “Or Ben. Depends on the day.”

Ben almost chokes, which is something of an achievement considering he’s not in control of the body at the moment.

‘Just trust me,’ Klaus says, pre-empting Ben’s instinctive shout of _what the hell are you doing._

“Mm,” Andrea says, looking unimpressed. “Last name?”

“I don’t use it anymore,” Klaus says. “Just using my first name now, like Madonna.”

‘Oh my god, Klaus,’ Ben says. If he had a body right now, he would be putting his head in his hands.

“Are you now,” Andrea says, unimpressed.

“Sure am,” Klaus smiles at her.

“I see,” Andrea says. “So, do you have a resume?”

“Not as of this moment, alas,” Klaus says, sighing. “Mud puddles, you know how it is.”

“Of course,” Andrea raises her eyebrow. “Maybe you can just summarize.”

“I can do that!” Klaus says. “Well, I was perpetually sixth or seventh best in my class all throughout my schooling years. I started working in the family business when I was twelve. I have a history in sales and law enforcement, and for additional skills I have an encyclopedic knowledge of urban survival skills and pharmaceuticals.’

 _‘Oh my god, Klaus,’_ Ben says.

Andrea looks at them. Her eyebrow raises a hair higher, and the corner of her mouth ticks upwards.

“Impressive,” she says, sounding almost amused. “And I bet that if you had to swear to it, every sentence of that would be perfectly true.”

“Of _course_ it would,” Klaus says, placing a hand over his heart and making his eyes go wide.

“Hm,” Andrea says, and - yes, she’s definitely suppressing a smile now. Ben would find that more interesting if he weren’t trying to figure out a way to die of embarrassment when he’s already dead.

“This is mostly for my own curiosity, but what would you say if I asked about your family?” Andrea says.

“I’m only really on speaking terms with one of my brothers,” Klaus replies promptly, “But we’re _really_ close.”

‘We’re sharing a damn body, I don’t really want to see if we can even _get_ closer,’ Ben grumbles.

“Uh-huh,” Andrea says, and now she’s smiling outright. Klaus smiles back at her.

Andrea taps a pen on her desk, and looks at Klaus.

“You know what,” she says. “My horoscope says to take more risks. You seem like a decent guy, and funny too. I’m gonna see if you work out.”

Klaus _freezes._ If he were in control, Ben would freeze too.

“Wait, really?” Klaus says.

“Really,” Andrea says. She stands up. “Come on, I’ll show you around the store, explain what you’ll be doing.”

“Uh, I, okay,” Klaus stammers, and hurries to follow her.

‘Did that just happen?’ Klaus asks.

‘I don’t know,’ Ben replies, dumbfounded.

‘Did I just get hired? Like, an actual, nine-to-five _job_ kind of hired?’

‘I - think so?’

‘Holy shit.’

‘Holy _shit,_ ’ Ben repeats, dazed.

‘God,’ Klaus says. Then he pauses. ‘Do you know what this means?’

Ben can sense the joke coming from a mile away, but he plays along anyways. They just got _hired._ ‘What?’

‘It means,’ Klaus says, a grin stealing across his face, ‘That in a place filled with magic crystals and spiritual herbs, the most magical and spiritual thing in the whole damn store is going to be _us._ ’

‘Yes,’ Ben says, mentally rolling his eyes as Klaus starts to giggle. ‘Yes, we will be. Good for us.’

‘Good for us,’ Klaus repeats, and Ben knows he’s not talking about the joke.

‘Yeah,’ Ben says, and in the back of Klaus’ mind, he smiles.


	18. Chapter 18

Ben taps a finger on the doorframe, and peers inside.

‘I still say it’s too small,’ Klaus whines. Again.

‘You said that about every one we looked at,’ Ben says idly, closing the door.

‘And I was right every time! They’re _all_ too small!’

‘I think _Allison’s_ closet would still be too small for you,’ Ben says, rolling their eyes.

‘...That’s not _guaranteed,_ ’ Klaus says.

‘Uh huh,’ Ben says. He walks out of the room and down the hall, trailing a hand along the wallpaper. The hall is pretty short, so he stops in the kitchen after a dozen feet. That, too, is fairly small.

But it’s _theirs,_ and that makes all the difference.

Ben finds himself grinning, smile stretching across their face. ‘Klaus,’ he can’t help but say, ‘We have a _home._ ’

‘Goodness me, _really?_ ’ Klaus says. ‘Well, I’m glad we don’t have to worry about some stranger coming in here and calling the cops.’

Ben, however, can hear the undercurrent of disbelief that’s present in Klaus’ voice. He grins again, and retreats back into their head, handing off control to Klaus, who blinks at the afternoon light coming in through the window.

Klaus breathes in deeply, and Ben can taste the air just as well as he can, the smell of furniture polish and paint pervading their senses. They weren’t the ones who brought those things, all their savings so far having gone into their deposit, but the moment Andrea and Klara heard about the new apartment they were entirely eager to donate what they could. Thanks to them, the bedroom is now a cheery shade of yellow, and the battered old dining table actually looks a smidge respectable.

Most of the furniture is from garage sales, along with their dishes and some of their clothes (although Ben did put their foot down about new sheets). They have a fridge now, and a few cupboards functioning as a pantry, and both Klaus and Ben keep opening both and staring at all the _food._ It’s - well, they’ve _seen_ more food in one place, but they’ve never _owned_ it.

Klaus shuts the cupboard and hugs himself. He’s grinning, irrepressibly.

‘We have a _home,_ ’ he tells Ben.

‘Told you we could do it,’ Ben says.

‘Oh, don’t pretend, you thought we would crash and burn,’ Klaus says airily, twirling around and padding back down the hall. He’s still grinning, and he trails their hand along the wall, the cuff that covers their scarred tattoo snug against their wrist. The wall is not the smoothest, because the place is in fact dirt-cheap and that has a corresponding quality, but Ben doesn’t even care. It’s the first place he can call home in almost nine years - if he’s being honest, the first place he can call home, period.

‘I didn’t!’ Ben protests. ‘....Not entirely, anyways.’

‘Sure,’ Klaus says knowingly. ‘Of course.’

‘Whatever,’ Ben says, sending the mental equivalent of rolling their eyes.

Klaus laughs that laugh he does whenever he thinks he’s won an argument. Ben decides to let him have this one, because as far as he’s concerned nothing can ruin today.

“Oh!” Klaus gasps. ‘Oh, Ben, Ben, I have an idea! Let’s have a birthday party!’

‘- Our birthday isn’t for another month,’ Ben says, caught off-guard.

Klaus whines, the sound sharp in their ears. ‘But _Ben!_ Let’s have it _early!_ It can be a housewarming party and a birthday party all in one! _We can have a double party, Ben._ ’

‘Who would we even invite?’ Ben asks. He resigns himself to the fact that, come hell or high water, they’re going to have a party. Klaus is way too excited to drop it.

‘Andrea and Klara, duh.’

‘Just them?’

‘Well, we’re not inviting anyone we know from the streets. They’d steal everything that isn’t nailed down and a few things that are,’ Klaus says, matter-of-factly. ‘Also they would have drugs.’

‘Right, yeah, no one from the streets,’ Ben says. He doesn’t even want to know who Klaus would invite. They aren’t exactly on good terms with anyone. ‘But - no one else?’

‘Who else is there?’ Klaus asks, confused.

Ben waits.

‘...oh,’ Klaus says.

‘It might be nice to see them again,’ Ben offers neutrally.

Klaus makes a face. Ben can’t tell _exactly_ what the face is, from this end, but he can guess well enough.

‘I don’t think Allison would come,’ Klaus says. ‘And I _know_ Luther wouldn’t. Can you imagine the commute?’

Right. Luther went up to the moon a couple months ago. It was in the papers - Spaceboy, actually going into space. Apparently he’s going to gather data and do other science stuff.

It sounds horribly, crushingly lonely. Ben doesn’t like to think about it.

‘I know,’ Ben says. ‘But we do have other siblings. They’re even in town.’

‘We don’t know that,’ Klaus says. ‘Maybe Diego became a marine biologist and is currently exploring the ocean floor while his colleagues pat each other on the back for hiring the guy who doesn’t need to breathe. Maybe Vanya went on a spiritual journey to Russia to discover her roots and is giving concerts to sold out theaters in Moscow. Maybe they met at the grocery store one day, made up, decided society is bullshit, and embarked on a crime spree across America. Maybe -’

‘I don’t think any of those are likely,’ Ben interrupts, because Klaus doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon.

‘But they’re not _impossible,_ ’ Klaus declares triumphantly.

Ben pushes forward the sensation of rolling their eyes.

Klaus _actually_ rolls their eyes. ‘Come oonn, Ben,’ he whines. ‘I don’t want to.’

‘You’re sober now,’ Ben says carefully. He doesn’t want to push, but - god, he’s so proud of Klaus. It’s been such a struggle, but he made it - _they_ made it. ‘You have a job, and an apartment, and a _life._ I just - think it would be pretty cool to show them that.’

Klaus sits down in an overstuffed chair. He pulls their legs up to their chest, and worries at the edge of their thumb. He stays quiet for a few minutes.

‘....I don’t - want to,’ Klaus says, uncertainly. Like he’s not sure if Ben will _let_ him disagree.

Ben would swallow if he had control of their throat. Damn. He didn’t mean to make Klaus afraid of disagreeing. It happens, sometimes, and Ben has seen it many a time, but Klaus has never been afraid to disagree with _him_ before. They’re trying to navigate around a lot of instinctive reactions Klaus has to possession and anyone having power over him, and they _are_ doing pretty well at it, but there are times….

‘Alright,’ Ben says. ‘We don’t have to invite them.’

Ben feels their shoulders untense. ‘Okay,’ Klaus says.

‘Sorry,’ Ben can’t help but add.

‘It’s alright,’ Klaus says. He stops biting at their thumb. ‘It’s just….it’s not about _them -_ well, some of it is, I guess. I don’t think they’d be very impressed with me achieving the minimum standards for personhood. But also - I’m possessed. I know it’s you, and you won’t hurt them, but I’m - I spent _years_ making sure I wouldn’t be possessed around them. I think I would probably panic if you took control and they were there.’

‘....I see,’ Ben says, filing away the _minimum standards for personhood_ comment to discuss later. One thing at a time. ‘Yeah, that makes sense….Do you think you’ll _ever_ be okay around them?’

Klaus shrugs slightly, staring blankly at the wall. ‘Dunno. Maybe. This is still pretty new, I’m not entirely used to it yet. Maybe in a few years or so I’ll be totally okay with the idea. Maybe I won’t. Can’t really say.’

‘Well,’ Ben sighs. ‘That’s fair, I guess.’

Klaus bites their lip. Ben gets the feeling he’s holding back from saying something.

‘Spit it out,’ Ben says wearily.

A few more seconds of hesitation. Then, ‘....They wouldn’t believe you’re here, Ben.’

A small jolt races through Ben’s mind. ‘What?’

‘They wouldn’t believe us,’ Klaus says. ‘If we told them, they would never believe us. But you still want to, don’t you?’

Ben finds that he cannot reply. That would be a lot more defensible if he were in control of their throat, but for some reason he can’t reply even in purely mental form.

‘Sorry,’ Klaus says, after a minute. ‘Shouldn’t have brought it up.’

‘No,’ Ben says, finally finding his voice. ‘No, it’s - alright. They’d never believe I was possessing you, that I’m - here. I know that.’

‘It’s okay to wish otherwise, though,’ Klaus says.

‘Yeah,’ Ben says. ‘Yeah, I know.’

Klaus retreats back into their skull, swinging Ben into the front. It’s weird and - a little disturbing that he can do that. No matter how hard he tries, Klaus can’t _take_ control unless Ben lets him, but he can shove Ben into the driver’s seat whether Ben wants to or not. And, of course, Ben can easily take over whenever _he_ tries, regardless of how Klaus feels about it. Klaus explained, very matter-of-factly, that it’s only when a ghost is distracted that he can snatch away a few muscles to hurt himself, and even then the ghost can reassert control with a thought if the pain doesn’t shock them out of him at once.

Ben has a much better understanding of why Klaus stopped thinking his body belongs to him, now.

But that’s okay. Because even if he can’t think of it as _his_ body, maybe he can start to think of it as _their_ body. A compromise. Ben hasn’t mentioned that _he’s_ started thinking of it like that, because he’s still not sure he’s ready to open up the can of worms that is Klaus’ body issues. Not yet, when they only have a few months sharing it together, when they’re still not entirely alright with everything that’s happened.

But someday. Someday.

Ben breathes, and feels their lungs expand and contract. He decided a while ago that, on balance, he does like breathing. The steady rhythm is soothing, and reminds him of the meditation techniques he tried when he was younger, searching desperately for a way to hold back the Horror.

Speaking of the Horror, it pokes at his stomach. Ben shifts and bats it down. He’s decided that it _does_ feel curiosity, because he just can’t think of any other way to characterize its reactions to the way the portal blinks in and out of existence at random, from its point of view. It hasn’t been aggressive, just cautiously probing.

Even so, Ben is _not_ letting it out. It’s the only thing he can think of that would, actually, convince their siblings that Ben is here, but the mere idea of _letting out the Horror near his siblings_ is almost enough to give _Ben_ a panic attack. It’s just flat-out not happening.

‘So,’ Ben says, reaching forward and picking up a book from the coffee table. ‘Sign language, huh?’

‘Might be fun,’ Klaus sends a shrug. ‘And don’t forget the knitting one, either.’

Ben nods and hums, and flips through the sign language dictionary. They decided that they need a hobby or two, in order to ignore the cravings that still tug on their body. Doing something with their hands just made sense, so they’ve amassed a few shelves of secondhand books on topics that range from baking to painting to wood-carving. And now sign language and knitting. Now that they have an actual _home,_ secure and stable and semi-spacious, they plan to explore the possibilities.

‘I think I’ll like knitting,’ Klaus says brightly.

‘I think you will,’ Ben says, nodding. He peers at the drawing of a hand, and mimics it, following the swooping arrows that denote movement.

‘Maybe I’ll make Klara and Andrea something. To thank them for their help with the apartment. Think they’d like that?’

‘I think they would,’ Ben says. ‘Are you going to do that _and_ the party?’

‘Duh. Oh, and speaking of the party, we need to plan that! I was thinking Saturday night, and we could try making that soup in that cookbook, you know, the one with the noodles? That looked good. And we can get _party games!_ Well, probably one game and a pack of cards, because we’re still poor as fuck. But still, it’s going to be _so much fun._ Do you think it would be too much to buy a new skirt for the occasion?’

‘If we cut out the one party game and settle for the pack of cards, I think we can manage,’ Ben says. He can’t say it isn’t a little weird when Klaus wants to wear skirts, but he’s learned to adjust to the feeling. ‘Banning skirts’ is only slightly below ‘take over without permission’ on Ben’s List Of Things He Will Absolutely Not Do, because Klaus is just so _happy_ when they wear them. Ben can learn to like the skirts.

‘Well, sacrifices must be made for fashion,’ Klaus decides. ‘I’m sure we can entertain ourselves with cards alone. We’ll have a _fantastic_ poker face, we can just switch every minute or so and confuse them until they don’t know what we’ll do next.’

‘Great,’ Ben says, signing the word at the same time. _Great._ ‘Sounds fun.’

‘It will be! So much fun!’ Klaus cheers.

Ben smiles, and keeps paging through the dictionary as Klaus chatters on. He stops at one page, and traces a finger over a word, looking at the illustration.

 _Home,_ he mouths to himself. He mimics the drawing, watching their hand make the word in the air.

_Home._

_We’re home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Finally! These boys _earned_ this happy ending, dear lord.
> 
> But! The story is not over yet! I'll be posting the next story (covering canon) beginning on the 13th, barring any complications. I've got nearly 50,000 words written so far, and I think it's going to end up being at least twice that. Aaaagh, why must these plot bunnies insist on fully thought out and lengthy stories. Yes, I know you guys like it, but my hands do not.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Klaus, $15, 10/23/2014](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24172255) by [Anglophile_Rin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anglophile_Rin/pseuds/Anglophile_Rin)




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